With 31 Horse Power and a top speed of 100 km/h, the Zero S Electric Motorcycle is a good contestant on the electric motorcycle market race. At the Zero Motorcycle Website you can check a clip of it in Action. Price tag: 9950 Us DOllars.

via Hell For Leather Magazine

Here is another initiative that may pave the way for more electric scooters on the streets. Arjanna van der Plas sent me a link of a project she is doing together with others students from the Technical University of Delft in Holland. She explains:

A team of six TU Delft students including me is currently developing an electric moped for Eco-movement. We do because we strongly believe that we need to get people out of their cars into a sustainable, noiseless, traffic jam, less way of transportation. The electric scooters that are currently on the market lack quality: they break down often and their batteries fail, making them unreliable. They basically look like conventional scooters, but their performance is way worse. That is why we develop a new high quality, high performance electric vehicle, that does look like a conventional scooter that much, but rather is a new archetype to set a new standard for electric transportation. Furthermore, we are developing a vehicle that is cradle to cradle, which means we pay attention to its sustainability during the whole lifecycle, from supply and production to after use. We do not want to just make it sustainable, but rather make it eco-effective: make it add something to nature. For example, the tires could clean up the streets or the vehicles could be used to gain scientific data while they are driving around. On our website, that I will update very soon, is more information.

Their project website has a growing amount of information about their ideas an is defenetely worth taking a close look at.

Flicker user Triplebull posted his test drive on this new electric bike during this year’s Eurobike. The Elmoto is suppoused to reach 45 km/h and to have an autonomy of 70 km.

Elmoto’s website

Via: Extraenergy.org (by the way, great ressource! - addded to link section)

Why aren’t we seeing more electric cars out there? despite the many answers for this question, the problem relies mainly on 2 facts: The low range of batteries compared to gas and the lack of a network of charging stations to backup a revolution in the transportation means of our planet. One company is set to change the game and provide a system that can make electric cars (and mopeds =)) as popular as mobile phones. This is what last month’s Wired Magazine and the story written by Daniel Roth tells us.

The Story is about the plans of Shai Agassi, former Head of Product at SAP, now founder of Better Place, and his plans to set up network of charging stations to power the future of human transportation.

Better Place’s strategy is a “mashup of the automotive and mobile phone industries”. Their plan is to provide the batteries to all electric cars, along with a network of smart charge posts. Drivers would be able to plugin anywhere, anytime, and to subscribe to different plans: unlimited miles, a specific maximum of miles each month or “pay on the go”. Just like the phone industry, costumers would be able to by the car from the operator and maybe even get the car for free, “the profit would be made by selling electricity-The minutes.”

Shai Agassi an his team have come up with an operating system, that recognizes the user as he comes to a charging station, buys electricity from the local electricity grid and that when the user has no time charge up his battery, he can swap for a new battery, without extra cost-The operator would own the battery.

Now, let’s hope that Agassi’s plan come to really as it moves forward. He has already got Israel and Denmark to test his vision on the near future.

We wish all the success to Better Place and hope to be part of this revolution. Our e.mopeds are not ready but are most definetly looking forward for this.