,
These features in the carbon fiber bodywork look to scoop air to cool the sides of the battery modules.
A standard chain drive is used to deal with all the torque the motor puts out. It was a bit weird not having a shift lever next to the foot peg.
This is the important setup screen which you should adjust first thing. I only rode the bike in Sport mode, and I see no reason to use any of the other modes as the throttle was very easy to modulate, even leaving from a dead stop. The right side shows the different levels of braking regen you can set when you get off the throttle. I used Low which seemed to have a little less ‘engine braking’ compared to what I’m use to with my CBR.
So about that ride…. The guys at Moto Club di Santa Monica hooked me up with a test ride. The Eva and Ego weigh in at roughly 560lbs, but I didn’t really notice. The closet thing I’ve ridden to the Eva with regards to riding position is my father-in-law’s BMW K1300 which weighs about 500lbs, but is a much bigger bike. The Eva felt lighter and was easier to move around. Moving from a dead stop, say making a right hand turn onto a street, you feel the mass a little bit; but once you’re moving over 5mph, it pretty much disappears. Compared to my 600RR, the Eva is easier to maneuver in a city environment. It turns in easier which is maybe due to the street fighter geometry.
For the first half minute, the noise of the electric powertrain will throw you off as will the lack of a clutch and shifter. But, it’s kinda like hoping into an electric kart at K1, you adjust very quickly to just having a throttle and brakes and electric noise. Pretty much after the first cycle of accelerating and slowing down not having to shift up and down, I was used to the controls.
THE TORQUE IS AWESOME! In Cali where you can split up the lanes to the front of the line at light, you want to be able to make a quick launch when the light turns green. On the Eva, it’s effortless and the throttle calibration feels like they ramp up the torque progressively on tip-in so as not to throw you off the bike. When the light turned green, I rolled the throttle all the way to WOT (wide open throttle) and it just launched. With the mass of the batteries up front, the front wheel stayed down. I don’t know if this would be the case on the Ego, but I could go WOT on the Eva at any speed and the nose would stay down. The ability to silently launch like this is amazing in the city because it doesn’t attract any attention of the kind that hands out speeding tickets. 0-60 in around three seconds without getting noticed is awesome. I can see the rear Pirelli Diablo getting worn out pretty quickly though.
The other thing that takes a bit of acclimation is the bike is dead quiet at a stop. All the car drivers will appreciate this as they won’t have an exhaust pumping noise and emissions right into their car windows. At one light, I had a guy come up to me in a Honda Clarity fuel cell car and as me if the Eva was electric. I think he went to Moto Club di Santa Monica shortly after.
From the motorcycle shop, I made my way to the 10 (I10 interstate for non-LA people) and headed east for a bit before looping back on Pico (surface street). Going WOT on the on-ramp, I was up to 80mph very quickly. At highway speeds of ~70mph, I feel like my 600RR would have to be at 10k rpms in the appropriate gear to match the acceleration of the Eva. On surface streets, it’s absolutely no contest from a stop unless I were to actually launch the 600RR using high revs off the line. In the 30mph range, I’d probably have to stay in 1st gear and spin 7k rpms on the 600RR to match the acceleration of the Eva with its electric torque. That instant torque is amazing for squirting through traffic.
So, an interesting thing happened at highway speeds. On a standard motorcycle, the handling gets slower as you go faster which can be attributed to the rotational inertia/gyroscopic effect of the rotating engine bits spinning faster and faster. I first notice this riding a friend’s Yamaha R1 which weighs about the same as my 600RR, but larger displacement engine slowed down the flick-ability of the bike. While I was on the highway on the Eva, I did some weaving around on the bike to get a feel for the transient response and it didn’t really seem to change much from lower speed surface street riding. My ride was very short, so I’ll need more seat time to really get a feel for it, but the Eva was very quick to change lanes at highway speeds; more so than any other bike I’ve ridden.
