Interesting news out of BRP on electrification.

[Piratezz]

First there have too be morons, that buy electric, to even make the conversion happen.... Me for one, like the burble coming from an exhaust combined with a combustion engine, transition is unavoidable, the whole politics worldwide, are making rumble to change to electricity, all changes are difficult, Tesla was made out for an Idiot, he proved to be right... But have to agree with some of the earlier posts, that we have along way too go...

Personally I think, Hydrogen is the answer, atleast here in the netherlands we have the infrastructure already there, cause most houses are connected to gas, and hydrogen, is transportable trough these pipes.
Time will tell, again there are alotta pro's, but also a lotta cons

[bikerbillone]

Interesting read, EV for me? No way as many have already said here. Seems the industry has enough problems, finding a new car or motorcycle is a real challenge, if ya find one, call Bill Gates for a long term loan.

[CloverHillCrawler]

Personally I think, Hydrogen is the answer, atleast here in the netherlands we have the infrastructure already there, cause most houses are connected to gas, and hydrogen, is transportable trough these pipes.
Time will tell, again there are alotta pro's, but also a lotta cons

Hydrogen is definitely a lot cleaner but mass production of the gas can be tricky to maintain "clean standards" the Scottish people are working on a clean solution to produce hydrogen.

https://www.sdi.co.uk/news-features/...rogen-industry

Still a lot of bugs to work out though even if it is produced cleanly it still has to use fossil fuel to store (kept cold) and move it around.

[Wmoater]

Watched that yesterday. Saw it on dootalk. Look at the blerred out cycle on the right in the beginning shot. Very last one. It’s a spyder. They already said the seadoo will be 2024 and a SXS in 25. We’ll see. It will only be one version my guess. So it will be the RT, F3, RYKER, and some other name for the electric version like the spark or shockwave.

[GFrog]

Personally I think, Hydrogen is the answer, atleast here in the netherlands we have the infrastructure already there, cause most houses are connected to gas, and hydrogen, is transportable trough these pipes.
Time will tell, again there are alotta pro's, but also a lotta cons

I also agree with Hydrogen. Most of our current internal combustion engines can be converted to run on Hydrogen. Mining for lithium to make lithium-ion batteries in expensive and messy. After 10 years, you have to dispose of all that toxic waste from old lithium batteries. There are still many electrical plants that use oil and coal to produce electricity which is used to charge EVs.

Hydrogen production is still problematic and expensive, but should the world shift to hydrogen on a large scale, cost would eventually be reduced making hydrogen powered vehicles possibly cheaper than using oil or electricity. The other benefit is that current vehicles could still be used with minor modifications.

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

I'm a retired electrical technician from a power company and no way in hell will I ever buy an electric car or motorcycle after working 37 years with batteries!!! This is all a bunch of crap this global warming bull ----! All it's doing is filling certain peoples wallets. The vehicles might be good for a couple years but after that look out and open up your wallets for repairs. That's all I've got to say.

X's 10 ..... and let me add .... When they introduced " CELL " phones a couple of decades ago, the system wasn't ready for their introduce THEN ,... because they STILL arn't ready even now .... Concerning " EV's " .... there ISN'T enough Electricity to power the current needs of the world NOW ..... WHY do they think adding millions & millions of vehicles Now are going to make this situation better, and where, when and how are they going to be re-charged unless the veh. is parked at your house ( which isn't going to have enough electricity to charge them anyway) ...... The USA was over-producing oil & natural gas in 2020, and still could be ..... You can figure out the rest ..... JMHO .... Mike

[Pirate]

Side question of sorts. Do all these EV's take the same plug in or are they all proprietary? If you buy a Tesla and want home charging and down the road get BRP EV, are we all going to have a bank of chargers in the garage??

[GFrog]

Side question of sorts. Do all these EV's take the same plug in or are they all proprietary? If you buy a Tesla and want home charging and down the road get BRP EV, are we all going to have a bank of chargers in the garage??

For the most part, they are all the same. But Tesla Super Chargers only work with Tesla. Here is a link to an interesting article about charging connectors.

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/electri...-kind-charger/

[Pirate]

For the most part, they are all the same. But Tesla Super Chargers only work with Tesla. Here is a link to an interesting article about charging connectors.

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/electri...-kind-charger/

Thanks. So, from what the article showed the fastest chargers are for Tesla only (15 min or so charge) and the station ones can charge between an hour and 11 hours. Not sure I could wait that long to charge even if gas is $6. a gallon here.

[WisconsinDavid]

Really not interested for a long time due to long distance touring trips. I don't want to have to sit and recharge for a long time after going 200 - 300 miles. Also, I don't plan to hunt for charging stations at the off-the-beaten-path areas to be explored. It will be a long while and using lots of others as guinea pigs before I buy an electric vehicle of any type.

[Raven]

They said on the news last night that BRP was going to start building motorcycles again under the Can-Am name.
These are going to be electric.

[BMac920]

Just an old Japanese bike rider here wanting to suggest a few things for BRP. A) Maybe put your engineers to work on finishing the current product line first before trying product extension to electric. 1. Standardize most bolt sizes. Like not needing two different size wrenches to drain the oil. 2. Design or select an oil dipstick that isn't the same color as clean oil so it might be easily seen. 3. Don't design things that have a blind hole to work with, like panel pushpins, bolts inside u-channels 4. Put latches on all hinged panels/doors/lids that actually line up easily with a good tactile click-feel when closing. 5. Use switchgear on hand controls that also have a good tactile feel with positive detents. 6. Be sure things such as the gear selector display is large enough to locate and easily read when in daylight and moving at 60+ mph 7. Just upgrade the Pully belt drive system to a virtually foolproof drive shaft system (read like any of the Honda or Yamaha shaft drive bikes). 8. While on the drive system also replicate the dual-clutch system on any of the semi-automatics by Honda. 9. Look into variable steering ratios with the aim of the steering systems to combine low-speed agility with safe high-speed behavior. 10. Allow the owner to select how much intervention of the Nanny is desired with more and less aggressive settings similar to the Yamaha Nemesis-TCS module.

This list isn't intended to beat up on BRP, as they have a great machine that has found an important market to serve. However, it is intended to say to BRP that you actually have a long way you could go to improve the Spyder, and have great existing examples to benchmark the direction you could head to significantly improve on what you already have. My list is not exhaustive or prioritized, it is simply where engineering resources could/should be spent before you think about an electric machine in my opinion. (Hope I didn't hijack your post Billybovine!) Regards.

[hut1]

I for one think EV's will be a "significant part" of our motoring future. It may or may not be the predominate mode in most of our lifetimes, but I believe it's here to stay. I would love to hear from any of our members who have first hand experience with EV's, cars or motorcycles. Personally I have regular access to a Tesla Model 3. I say "access" because it belonged to my late father-in-law and we now use it to run errands and transport my mother-in-law. FIL also installed a Tesla solar roof and 3 Powerwall batteries. For the way we use the car, solar takes care of all the charging power needed. Granted, this isn't for everyone; and the total investment is substantial, but I embrace the concept and envision other "alternative energy" vehicles and power sources in the future.

[vito1943]

I think that BRP should offer an electric Spyder with a matching trailer. In the trailer would be a gas powered generator for re-charging the Spyder when you find yourself nowhere near an open recharging station. Or the trailer could hold an extra battery pack, sort of like a Reserve in the gas tank.

[bigbadbrucie]

I think that BRP should offer an electric Spyder with a matching trailer. In the trailer would be a gas powered generator for re-charging the Spyder when you find yourself nowhere near an open recharging station. Or the trailer could hold an extra battery pack, sort of like a Reserve in the gas tank.

Using that line of reasoning, I guess a lot of us should be towing a matching fuel trailer also.

[BryanSD]

For those curious, this was the video that sparked a renewal of this thread. While BRP is announcing the introduction of EV vehicles begin in 2024, I've seen other announcements that say it will take up to 2026 before electric is seen throughout the entire product line. Can-Am and BRP have also replied in social media that gas engine Spyders/Rykers aren't going away anytime soon. Personally, I want both in my garage, a gas-powered Spyder and an EV Spyder.

[ollicat]

I'm a retired electrical technician from a power company and no way in hell will I ever buy an electric car or motorcycle after working 37 years with batteries!!! This is all a bunch of crap this global warming bull ----! All it's doing is filling certain peoples wallets. The vehicles might be good for a couple years but after that look out and open up your wallets for repairs. That's all I've got to say.

Right on!

[Schreckftw]

That Ryker concept picture looks like they want the motor in the front. Look at those fenders!. Also seeing how awesome my BRP Go app is I totally trust this will be the best electric vehicle ever! Did my sarcasm come through in that? lol

[rv6a]

I can't wait until they come out and I can begin running my bike on coal and natural gas from the power companies.

[Raven]

Hope they have better luck than Harley Davidson.

[BryanSD]

Hope they have better luck than Harley Davidson.

Harley Davidson finally got smart by branching off it's EV motorcycles to its own company as Livewire. The same goes with it's EV bicycles, Serial 1 (although those can be found at some dealerships). They're both important product lines (and products I would buy if I had the money) but a completely different customer and (perhaps more important to the success) sales culture found at HD dealerships. EV is still a niche product and it's no surprise the traditional HD dealership (and customer base) didn't really want to see them there. I think Ford dealerships and Can-Am dealerships may face the same problem of not knowing how to pivot from gas to electric. Although Ford seemed to do pretty decent in educating dealers with it's Ecoboost and Hybrid engines so who knows.

By the way, it's reported that for 2019-early 2021 that the entire EV product line brought in $74 million in revenue. They're EV bikes for kids they sold were at $41 million in revenue while their EV motorcycles made $30 million in revenue. This is before Livewire broke from HD (and since then brought in a new EV motorcycle at $20,000 instead of the outrageous $30,000 for the original Livewire).

[Motorcycledave]

BRP has announced today that they will be introducing electric versions across all their product lines by the end of 2026.

http://news.brp.com/news-releases/ne...K632BUx6IPauPQ

Call me crazy but If they make all the BRP products as shown they "in my opinion " will loose the market on the Spyders and others
Out here in the west, everything is miles away, I see dead electric cars on the side of the road all the time with a truck and generator charging them up.... WAY more money than a regular tow truck that brings yo a can of gas and off you go. Harley out here can't give away the idea of electric bikes

[Eranical]

A friend bought into the hype and got himself a used Tesla. He tried a road-trip to NYC relying on the car navigating him to charging stations on time. All was great until one station he reached was having a power outage. He had to use a regular old gas guzzler tow truck to get to the next charging station

[Big F]

this is indeed an interesting announcement. did they say they would be discontinuing the gas version or did I miss that?
BIG F

[JohnRuckus]

For those of you who are resistant to the change to EVs, it's going to happen with or without you. Change is inevitable. As a company, they have to prepare and plan for the future. Even if that is just what many consider trendy thinking. They have to cater to the public and their shareholders. As a publicly traded company, they have to prioritize making profits and satisfying shareholders. Of course this can all blow up in their face.
With this said, there were many naysayers regarding the Y configured trike that many of us enjoy riding(even with the lists of complaints often posted online), but now look at us. A whole community of enthusiasts who keep debating is the spyder a "real" motorcycle lol.
They know that not all of their current customers will want to jump to electric. So, they want isolate you. They'll cater to both demographics and eventually phase something out.
Long story short, there is too much potential to make lots of money in the EV market for them not to dip their toes in.
This will be an interesting post to review in the next decade to see where we are technologically and the thoughts of those who have commented.