BMW HAS E-VOLVED
Electric S1000R ridden
While everyone has been distracted by ShiftCam this and Connected that, BMW have been quietly working on an electric motorcycle project for the last two years.
The result is this: the E-Power Roadster Concept – a sort of halfway point between the DC Roadster concept we saw earlier this year and the eventual production electric bike we’ll see in the near future. However, it bears little resemblance to the DC; instead it looks like a parts bin special – which isn’t surprising, because that’s exactly what it is. The front-end has come from an S1000R, while the rear drive is from an R1200RS. The frame has been custom-made, while the drive train is borrowed from BMW’s car division: the battery pack comes from a 2-series plug-in hybrid while the motor is from a China-only long wheelbase 7-series.
Pulls like an S1000RR
It might be a bit of an ugly duckling but the result is a bike that weighs 290kg, which isn’t all that bad for a prototype electric machine (a Zero SR/F weighs a genuine 228kg) that’s got all the usual road going safety gear. With a bit more time, BMW say they could easily lop 30kg off it. The battery itself, which is encased in that whopping great metal box, has a nominal capacity of 13kW and it’s paired with BMW’s inline drive motor (to create their signature shaft drive, naturally). Torque is a whopping 147.5ftlb, although once it’s gone through the single-speed step-down gearbox, BMW say it has an effective torque of 1106ftlb (yes, really). Even with its whopping weight, that’s enough oomph to give it a 0-60mph time of 2.9s – 0.2 slower than the S1000RR.
Rapid charging capability
As ever with electric bikes, the biggest sticking point is charging the battery. The Roadster is capable of DC fast-charging, hence the name, which will fill it pretty much to the brim in just under an hour. The limit to this is heat (once the battery gets above 40°C charging slows right down) and BMW are working on an improved cooling system to get around this. Their goal for production is to achieve 3.7 miles of charge per minute, so a 30-minute stop would put 111 miles’ worth of electricity into the tank.
As a proof of concept – to show just how much zing you can pack into some zinc – the E-Power Roadster is impressive. But it is just a concept and by the time the next evolution of this goes on sale, we’ll all be another few thousand miles down the electric highway of the future.