Last night Bay Area startup BRD officially unveiled the RedShift MX motocrosser and the RedShift SM supermoto — two new all-electric, zero-emissions motorcycles aimed at converting the gas-guzzling enthusiast who likes to ride hard and fast. The sporty vehicles were designed by a team of riders who weren’t satisfied with the electric bikes currently on the market. They harness the power of 40 horses and can go 50 miles on a charge, but with price tags around $15,000, these bikes better impress or BRD won’t see many making their way through the assembly line onto the hilly roads of California.
It turns out that the team at BRD had more in mind than the environment when they set out to make a line of electric motorcycles. “We build electric bikes because we are in love with instant throttle response and flat, endless torque,” notes their website, adding, “We love going fast. And we love finding new ways and new places to go fast. Our goal from the beginning was to create motos that are easier to ride fast than anything else out there.”
The RedShift chassis, designed by the BRD team, is modeled after a standard MX chassis and uses the battery and motor as weight bearing design elements. This design brings the bike’s total weight down, therefore allowing the battery to push the bike farther — the lighter the weight, the less energy needed. Each bike comes with a 5.2 kilowatt-hour battery pack and though the team estimates the bikes will run for about 50 miles on a charge, they are expecting to bump that range higher in the very near future. In addition to the two commercial, street legal electric bikes, they’ve also created the RedShift PD, an electric bike for urban police.
+ BRD
Via Wired
All images courtesy of BRD
