4 ms·

I don’t understand, why would this debut only in a motorcycle? Wouldn’t there be a much bigger market and investor interest in putting it in a car initially?

john01dav 10mo ago
A guess: existing charging infrastructure is too slow/low power to charge this fast enough to be useful over currently standard batteries for car sized batteries
sneak 10mo ago
I would assume it’s a capacity/scaling thing, plus bizdev. Car companies source things on much longer timescales and build many many more units.
- markbao 10mo ago
  +1. There’s also more upstart motorcycle makers than car makers willing to take a bet on new tech. Plus the difficulty of scaling manufacturing to serve much larger capacity car batteries.
Gibbon1 10mo ago
When I've looked at the power and energy requirements of vehicles it seems to follow some sort of log(size) law when it comes to speed and energy per mass distance. But not for acceleration which is linear. What that means is a small vehicle like a motorcycle needs more energy and hp per lb than a car to have the same range. So could see higher performance batteries being very useful for motorcycles. Have heard noises that electric motorcycles and bicycles are heavy feeling. So lighter probably would be considered better.
mrtksn 10mo ago
It can be many things, like large car companies staying away from unproven tech or them demanding production capacities too large to gamble with brand new tech. This niche motorcycle brand has already established business relationships with Donut Lab, they were using Donut Lab's electric motors. Probably the Donut people easily worked out a release pipeline together in a bar or something, which would have taken years with VW.
- rootusrootus 10mo ago
  > This niche motorcycle brand has already established business relationships with Donut Lab Yeah, they are the same company basically.
inemesitaffia 10mo ago
Owners are the same

john01dav 10mo ago

A guess: existing charging infrastructure is too slow/low power to charge this fast enough to be useful over currently standard batteries for car sized batteries

sneak 10mo ago

I would assume it’s a capacity/scaling thing, plus bizdev. Car companies source things on much longer timescales and build many many more units.

markbao 10mo ago
+1. There’s also more upstart motorcycle makers than car makers willing to take a bet on new tech. Plus the difficulty of scaling manufacturing to serve much larger capacity car batteries.

Gibbon1 10mo ago

When I've looked at the power and energy requirements of vehicles it seems to follow some sort of log(size) law when it comes to speed and energy per mass distance. But not for acceleration which is linear. What that means is a small vehicle like a motorcycle needs more energy and hp per lb than a car to have the same range. So could see higher performance batteries being very useful for motorcycles. Have heard noises that electric motorcycles and bicycles are heavy feeling. So lighter probably would be considered better.

mrtksn 10mo ago

It can be many things, like large car companies staying away from unproven tech or them demanding production capacities too large to gamble with brand new tech. This niche motorcycle brand has already established business relationships with Donut Lab, they were using Donut Lab's electric motors. Probably the Donut people easily worked out a release pipeline together in a bar or something, which would have taken years with VW.

rootusrootus 10mo ago
> This niche motorcycle brand has already established business relationships with Donut Lab Yeah, they are the same company basically.

inemesitaffia 10mo ago

Owners are the same