
Yatri: First electric motorcycle to be made in Nepal - milap
https://www.yatrimotorcycles.com/
======
dharmab
There are other companies targeting other areas of the market.

Ultra high end: Harley Davidson Livewire, Zero SR/F

High end: Fuell, Cake

Mid range: Zero S/DS/FX

Low end: Sur-on Light Bee, CSC City Slicker

The biggest problem for electric bikes is recharge time. Motorcycle batteries
are physically small and have low range, and take hours to recharge compared
to 1-2 minutes to refuel at a gas station. That makes them unusable for
anything except city commuting or tossing in the back of a truck on the way to
the OHV area. Meanwhile the fastest growing segment in motorcycling is
adventure riding, which is for bikes that can be ridden thousands of miles at
a time both on and off road (sometimes 50-100 miles away from paved roads or
services of any kind).

~~~
leggomylibro
Wow, what kind of adventure bikes can be ridden for thousands of miles at a
time? I only get about 200-250 miles on dirt, and that's with an extra tank of
gas strapped to the back.

Are they like 650cc+ with huge fuel tanks? I shudder to think of trying to
pick one of those up on a muddy slope...

Anyways, an electric bike that could do ~200 miles seems like it could do well
as a replacement for smaller engines, but I haven't seen any dual-sports that
realistically claim a range of over 100 miles with normal use, and you're
right that that would barely get you away from the major highways in most
places.

~~~
peatmoss
I assume they mean with periodic stops for gasoline, which is a lot more
common than a quick charge station.

That said, it’s an interesting thought exercise to go unsupported and make
your own (solar) fuel via motorcycle. Of course to maximize charging / travel
you’d have to ride at night, which would sort of suck.

~~~
dharmab
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman just completed a ride from South America to
Alaska on electric motorcycles. They had some Rivian electric support vehicles
carrying charged batteries, and also people along their route often let them
top off their bikes while hosting them. They'll be making their trip into a
web series called Long Way Up (the third in a series of trip blogs they've
done over the past 15 years)

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forinti
Is there a reason for most motorcycles not to be electric by now?

Few people take them on the road, they seem to be used mostly in cities, so
there's not a big problem with range.

They are small, so you would have less of a problem setting up the charging
infrastructure in your house.

~~~
imglorp
Electrics are still milking the premium market, is the problem.

In the West, a brand new Ninja 400 fuel injected sport bike is $US 5000, new.
Through economies of scale, and their getting the bugs out and widening
tolerances over its 30 years history, they're now the AK-47 of bikes: cheap
and dependable. You can spend $20k on a bike, but you don't need to. Similar
Honda and Suzuki models. Harley and BMW can't and won't touch this part of the
market.

The Zero starts at $US 11k but you need to spend more like 18k to get
something as useful as the current gas bikes.

~~~
IgorPartola
This is correct. Also consider that almost any Japanese bike can be had used
for $3k or under. Electric bikes are in low five figures and the used market
is basically non-existent. We have no data on how reliable they will be long
term either. Plus range and availability of charging stations is a thing.

But I think the main reason we won’t see ICE motorcycles go away soon is
simply because used bikes are such a huge market. You can buy a 1970s Honda
and get it to run again very cheaply and it will just plugging along. You
can’t do that with cars for the most part and the safety features have
improved with cars with every decade while for motorcycles they have only
improved substantially in 2010s with the EU mandating ABS as a requirement. So
a 2005 bike is going to be essentially the same as a 1975 one, safety-wise. I
would bet in 2070 people will absolutely be riding 100 year old bikes.

~~~
peatmoss
> while for motorcycles they have only improved substantially in 2010s with
> the EU mandating ABS as a requirement.

I really wish it were possible to get advanced cornering ABS on something that
isn’t a bajillion cc displacement. The smallest, most reasonably sized
adventure touring bike I’ve seen with cornering ABS is the new BMW F750GS,
which is still >800cc. I sat on one the other day and the weight and height
seemed manageable, but what I’d love is a 650cc or smaller Japanese bike where
I could get advanced safety tech. I mean, these bikes are where a lot of new
riders like myself start, and attract exactly the sort of rider who is likely
to do something stupid and reactionary in a corner.

I have ABS on my 500cc Honda, which is honestly as big a bike as I’d have
wanted to start on, and I’d have happily parted with the extra dollars for
cornering ABS and traction control had they been options. I cannot for the
life of me figure out why the best life-saving tech isn’t at least an option
on beginner-sized bikes.

Pardon for the tangent rant :-)

~~~
Zenbit_UX
I'd suggest taking a look at a gentpy used Triumph Street Triple (R/S
Optional). Depending on the year and mileage you're looking between $6000-9000
with stock ABS and with 675cc right in that sweet spot you're looking for. I
picked one up 2 years ago, 2014 with 1400km and no regrets whatsoever.

~~~
peatmoss
I think cornering ABS is only available on the new 1050? I think that’s also
the case with the Tiger (I’m part of the adventure-touring market segment).
You can get cornering ABS on the huge 1200, but not the 800, IIRC.

Like, I want a 500cc Honda twin with cornering ABS. As it is, I have ABS, but
cornering ABS looks like a solid evolution.

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nrp
The specifications and renders certainly look interesting, but there’s nothing
on that site that indicates there is anything more than specs and renders.

~~~
clort
I felt that the site was a tease. The pictures way too close up, not showing
you the whole thing, hidden in the dark. When I finally reached a picture of
the device, I thought the very square 'battery' (?) looked chunky. "And now
for something completely different" more pictures of the same (or very
similar?) except with a tablet glued on. Marketing.

~~~
ivanvanderbyl
I hope that's not a touch screen. Anyone who has ever ridden a bike can tell
you how impractical and distracting that would be. Try using it in the rain,
with gloves on.

~~~
mayniac
Definitely looks like a touch screen interface from the photos.

The screen itself is distracting enough even without being a touchscreen. I
really disklike the tesla-esque design with it, it feels completely wrong for
a bike.

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gambiting
I mean, electric mopeds have been a thing for decades now, when I was growing
up certainly most kids had electric mopeds as petrol ones were more expensive
and required more maintenance. Somehow these companies make it look as if
electric bikes are something new that hasn't been done before - that's
nonsense.

~~~
jacknews
Sure, they're a thing, but where was this where 'most kids had electric
mopeds'?

I think classic 'moped territory' would be somewhere like South-East Asia. I
don't see too many electric mopeds there.

~~~
codr7
Growing up in the Swedish country side, most kids including me had mopeds. Not
electric, but considering I'm 42yo it just wasn't a thing back then.

Usually they used the same parts as more powerful motorcycles, but with
cheaper breaks and crippled engines to reduce the max speed.

And that's how I got my only engine mechanics experience, by finding ways to
make them run fast.

Sort of the worst of both worlds, fast motorcycles without proper breaks
driven by kids without traffic experience/common sense.

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polymorph1sm
One thing I notice with electric motorcycle is that riding experience is much
better than gasoline version ( way less vibration and better throttle control
). In Taiwan there's a local company call Gogoro selling electric scooter
(Scooter/motorcycle is a very common here). Another interesting feature is
that it doesn't rely on charging station rather you swap the empty battery for
charged ones from any battery exchange stations ( of course you had to pay for
it).

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milap
Here is a video of the motorbike running in the Himalayas
[https://youtu.be/uNKIqbdIS9o](https://youtu.be/uNKIqbdIS9o)

~~~
mayniac
Not a single shot of the bike going around a corner...

Those footpegs look very low. At 0:32 it looks like the rider's toes are only
an inch away from the ground.

~~~
nickfromseattle
Based on :017 and 0:38 the footpegs appear to be at the same level as the
center of the wheel.

An SV650 appears to have slightly higher pegs.

I agree they look low, but checking out other bikes they appear to be in
similar places.

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floki999
Sarolea: Belgian electric superbike right here
[https://www.sarolea.com/motorcycles](https://www.sarolea.com/motorcycles)

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
How much of this is actually made in Nepal? India's been churning out vast
quantities of increasingly decent domestic/joint venture bikes for decades now
and is starting to get serious about car manufacturing, but I wasn't aware
that Nepal was building much in the way of anything -- there can't possibly be
much of a local supply chain.

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karmakaze
I loved the design, pausing and accepting the 2h charge to run 100km.

The iPad instrumentation however I don't approve of and can't accept. I at
least hope it all goes orange-red on black at night.

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stanislavb
It's great. It seems like something that could make me buy one.

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jacknews
Sorry the website is a complete disaster for me on Firefox OS X.

In any case, it looks targeted at the higher end.

I would think electric bikes/mopeds can be cheaper and more reliable than
gasoline, and there would be a very big market, especially in poorer
countries, competing with Honda Cubs etc as general workhorses.

~~~
wayneftw
Worked fine for me on Chrome / XFCE / Linux.

I think it would be fantastic if electric motorcycles would become popular
here in the US. Maybe then I wouldn't have to hear super loud and scary
exhaust pipes! Who am I kidding though... the people who do that would find
some other way to be annoyingly inconsiderate.

~~~
jdavis703
That loudness is a safety feature. It helps keep drivers alert for the
presence of a motorcycle. I don’t ride, but I see our streets are becoming
more and more dangerous as people ditch sedans for SUVs and trucks; extra
sound proofing is added to cars; and people continue to text, eat or be under
the influence while driving.

~~~
peatmoss
I’m by no means an advanced rider, but I am a rider, and I don’t buy the
“pipes save lives” argument in the slightest. The cone of sound goes out the
back of your bike when accelerating: pretty much alerting the motorists I’m
least worried about to my presence.

I’m way more worried about people doing stupid stuff in front of me than
behind me. And when I’m worried about people behind me, I’m mostly worried at
stops that someone will rear-end me... when my hypothetical loud pipes would
be idling at a purr anyway.

On my very sensible Honda CB500X, I have a quiet exhaust and have a daytime
headlight modulator, which I’m positive _has_ caught the attention of
distracted motorists. I’d take a very cool and very legal headlight modulator
over loud pipes 100 times out of 100.

~~~
dharmab
Bright lights save lives!

------
bhhaskin
The title is a bit click-baity. It almost reads like it's the first electric
bike, which it's not. Also interesting choice in name. Project Zero is pretty
similar to the Zero bike. Zero bike has been around for quite awhile now. I am
glad to see some competition in this space.

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mkagenius
May I take this opportunity to highlight to our American friends that its not
pronounced as Nay-Paul. No. Its pronounced as Nay-Paal.

~~~
throwaway5d097
With languages that are not written phonetically with wide regional variations
in pronunciation (English), I think it makes sense to not care as long as
you're understood. Might as well demand that Japan be pronounced Neep-on or
Cuba Cooba and not Cyooba.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I always liked the BBC's approach -- English words and well settled loan words
are allowed to have regional pronunciation, foreign words go via the
pronunciation unit. So news readers pronounce (or try in the case of that
Icelandic volcano) locations, names etc as they are intended to be. Names are
personal, it's offensive to mispronounce them. Make the effort, even if it
involves struggling a little with sounds that are not a natural part of your
language.

"Not care so long as you're understood" reminds me of US TV approach, where
every report pronounces that funny foreign name different, often painfully
wrong; or periodic fashions in education -- during the sixties and early
seventies UK fashion for "no one cares about grammar so long as the little
dear is understood". It's coloured, limited and ruined my communication for
the following 50 years, despite much effort to self teach as an adult. I'll
probably never put all commas, semicolons and what not in the right place
naturally, nor clear sentences structure -- they come with a second editing
pass. A pass HN mostly doesn't get, sorry. :)

We got, in total: "verbs -- doing words, adjectives -- describing words, nouns
-- naming words, tenses, and the use of the full stop". I honestly remember
nothing else of grammar being taught whatsoever.

TL;DR I would start wars against "not care as long as you're understood". It's
a horrible, disrespectful and limiting approach. Happy New Year. :)

~~~
lgessler
I'm generally in agreement and want to anticipate an objection—that the sounds
of foreign words often fall well outside of any given person's native set of
sounds.

Take Iran for example. It's rendered often in English as [ɑɪ.ɹæn] (eye-ran).
What it "should" be is [i.ɾɑn] (ee-rahn). Fortunately, all the sounds in
[i.ɾɑn] are ones that occur in most varieties of English (with the exception
of the [ɾ], but that's minor), so most speakers are able to accommodate
without issue.

Now compare that to Shanghai: its English rendition is [ʃeɪŋ.hɑɪ], and its
Mandarin pronunciation is [ʂâŋ.xài]. Most Englishes lack the voiceless
retroflex fricative [ʂ], and the same for the voiceless velar fricative [x],
and to make matters worse, Mandarin is tonal, which puts the correct
pronunciation of this word squarely out of reach for almost all English
speakers.

It still makes sense to insist that people try as hard as they reasonably can.
Perhaps to say that speakers should get as close as possible—in the case of
Shanghai, for example, maybe this would mean [ʃɑŋ.hɑɪ] instead of [ʃeɪŋ.hɑɪ].

~~~
usrusr
And Deutschland isn't actually pronounced Germany or l'Allemagne. At some
point you have let go and allow a language to have its own words for
geographic terms outside of where it is spoken. It can be I bit difficult
where borders have shifted (revisionists would insist on "true" names even if
they don't know them themselves without referencing a historic map while
everybody else is making a conscious effort to avoid those) or where a name
was forced on a place by invading foreigners that got ousted again, but it's
perfectly possible to navigate that problem-space without trying to go native
pronouncement everywhere.

In fact, in a case of politically questionable names it could even be seen as
a sign of antirevisionist acceptance to introduce a badly butchered (if
necessary) transcription and pronouncement of the local name into a language
that used to have a name that isn't acceptable anymore.

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aaron695
People in Nepal and developing countries need cheap/er gasoline powered
motorcycles/scooters.

I'd start with people with first world problems to develop the tech.

Anyway, video, what they have done seems pretty insane given the timeline, not
sure how much is off the shelf

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNV2gbrswg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNV2gbrswg)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
No, they need western help to skip right past fossil fuel infrastructure. It
should probably be a key requirement of any western aid or trade.

~~~
aaron695
No, they need to be allowed to use fossil fuel infrastructure to develop just
like us.

The arrogance we have developed such that none of us in the first world uses
or have used electric bikes predominately in our families, now, or a 100 years
ago by our ancestors when they first appeared and were about technologically
the same as today.

This, it's good enough for them idea is astounding. This road has been well
travelled.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Don't get me wrong, I'd like the West to rip out all fossil infrastructure as
soon as possible, so we're using electric cars and bikes too. I figure it's
better for us _and_ them.

Why is it any different to the developing world experience of mobile phones?
They expanded directly to mobiles without any landline phase first, and
because of that have been surprisingly successful. Do you claim Western
arrogance here?

If we simply shrug and let all the developing countries go via the worst of
Victorian era coal, then 20th century oil, RCP 8.5 starts to look like an
optimistic pipe dream. Everyone will suffer.

