For years, the conventional wisdom around electric motorcycles has been pretty simple: build an electric motorcycle that’s just as good as a gas motorcycle, make it affordable enough, and eventually, riders will switch.
It’s essentially the same playbook that electric cars have followed. Make the electric version competitive enough and eventually the market will move in that direction.
But I think we’ve been misanalyzing electric motorcycles. Because the future of electric motorcycles isn’t necessarily about convincing today’s gas riders to switch. These are the next generation of motorcyclists who will have no reason to start on gasoline in the first place.
And that is much more important than it seems. In fact, it is the entire key to the puzzle. Because make no mistake, the future of motorcycling is electric. It just won’t happen like most people think.
Motorcycles are not cars.
The problem with applying the electric car playbook to motorcycles is that motorcycles are not cars.
For most people, a car is a tool. It’s transportation. Sure, some drivers are deeply passionate about their cars, but they are in the minority. The vast majority simply want something comfortable, reliable, affordable and convenient to get them from point A to point B.
Motorcycles, especially in markets like the United States and Europe, are different. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the car situation. For a minority of Western motorcyclists, and especially for Americans, a motorcycle is a tool. For the vast majority, it is a passion. People generally buy motorcycles because they love them. And for many motorcyclists, that love is deeply intertwined with the gasoline engine itself.
The sound, the vibration, the change, the mechanical character. These are not necessarily defects that need to be engineered out. They are part of the traditional cyclist experience.
You can show someone like that an electric motorcycle with better acceleration, lower maintenance costs, cheaper operating expenses, and the convenience of charging at home, and they still won’t want it.
Not because the electric motorcycle is not good enough, but because it is not what they love.
And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with loving gas motorcycles if that’s your thing. But it means that trying to convert those running backs may be a losing battle, at least on any meaningful timeline.
Unfortunately, it seems many years were wasted on that approach. Take Harley-Davidson for example.
The brand began building its first electric motorcycle more than a decade ago, something to be commended among all the other traditional motorcycle manufacturers that rejected the idea of going electric. When it launched in 2018, the Harley-Davidson LiveWire received rave reviews, but it simply didn’t sell well. For one thing, it was incredibly expensive: $30,000. But the other big reason was that no matter how awesome it was, it wasn’t going to relieve that gas itch that most drivers still had.
That motorcycle still exists in small-scale production as LiveWire One through HD’s electric spinoff, but now LiveWire has discovered the real path to moving a greater number of electric motorcycles with its S4 Honcho line. And this brings us to how electric motorcycles will actually replace their gasoline counterparts.
The next generation doesn’t have that baggage.
Now consider what is happening today with younger cyclists.
Millions of people grow up riding increasingly powerful electric bicycles, electric scooters, and electric motorcycles. For them, electric two-wheelers are not some strange new alternative to the real thing. They are real.
They’ve become accustomed to instant torque, quiet operation and the simplicity of twisting the throttle and going. For these motorcyclists, a gasoline-powered motorcycle is ridiculously primitive. It would be like if I gave you a drill or a gasoline-powered blender. Yes, exactly. Now look who’s suddenly on the team’s battery, huh?
Now we have a whole new generation of cyclists preparing to come of age. And eventually, many of those riders will want something more.
Maybe they’ve spent years riding a 28 mph electric bike or a 40 mph electric motorcycle. Now they’re young adults, they want to ride on faster roads, and they want something capable of 70 or 80 mph that’s actually street legal. They’ve gone from a sixteen-year-old in a hoodie to a twenty-six-year-old in a collared shirt. Instead of going to high school, they now go to work. But they haven’t lost that desire to ride.
So what is the natural next step?
An electric motorcycle.
It’s not because they’ve carefully compared electric and gas motorcycles and decided that electric is superior. It’s not because they are trying to save the planet or reduce their maintenance costs. It is simply because they grew up with electric two-wheelers as the norm.
It is simply the next logical step in the type of driving they have already been practicing for years.
Will some of them switch to gasoline motorcycles? Sure. But for most, gasoline motorcycles won’t even enter the equation.
Gasoline motorcycles will not shut down forcefully
Don’t get me wrong, we haven’t seen the latest gasoline motorcycles.
And I don’t even think that electric motorcycles are going to suddenly outsell gas motorcycles because they become objectively better machines. At least not in the traditional recreational motorcycle markets we’re talking about here.
Instead, I think we are going to see a somewhat more gradual generational transition.
Today’s gasoline motorcycle enthusiasts will continue to ride gasoline motorcycles. They will continue to buy them, keep them and enjoy them for as long as they can.
But as those bikers stop being bikers, the next generation won’t replace them with another generation of gas-powered motorcycle buyers. In other words, gasoline motorcycles will become extinct along with their drivers.
Increasingly, those younger riders will have already entered the world of powered two-wheelers via electric bicycles and electric scooters. When you are ready to ascend, the electric motorcycles will be waiting for you.
And in the coming years, technology will only get better. The only remaining Achilles’ heel of electric motorcycles (their runtime) will get better and better as battery technology improves and we move toward solid-state batteries.
They will suddenly be on par with gasoline motorcycles in range and “fueling” time, but they will surpass those combustion motorcycles in other places. But at that point, “better” will no longer matter, as electric will be the only comfortable option for the vast majority of new drivers. Again, you wouldn’t buy a power drill that runs on a gasoline engine when you’ve seen how convenient and effective a lithium-ion power drill has been throughout its life.
Over time, the traditional gasoline motorcycle market will simply shrink as its current customer base ages, while electric motorcycles will build a whole new customer base alongside it.
And again there will be exceptions in both directions. Some longtime gasoline riders will eagerly embrace electric motorcycles, and some younger riders will still discover the appeal of combustion engines and gears.
But the broader trend will be driven less by conversion and more by generational replacement.
That’s why electric motorcycles will eventually become the standard, even if they never manage to convince the majority of today’s gas-powered motorcycle enthusiasts to switch.
Gasoline motorcycles won’t necessarily disappear because electric motorcycles will finally surpass them at their own game. They will fade away because the next generation of cyclists will play a completely different game.
In other words, and to paraphrase TS Eliot, gasoline motorcycles will not go out with a bang, but with a whimper.
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