An electric chopper?

[n2doc]

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer/ August 12, 2009 edition



NEW YORK
You know those powerful choppers – customized motorcycles, often with unusual designs – that can be heard in the next county when they zoom down the highway.

Well, Orange County Choppers (OCC), the custom bike shop in Newburgh, N.Y., that has its own TV reality show, has a new take on the genre: no noise.

No, it’s not a special muffler developed by NASA. It’s what OCC is calling the first custom electric motorcycle.

Yes, it’s a chopper that can keep up with a Harley-Davidson “hog” at 100 miles per hour without even waking up a baby. And, because the machine is electric, it has zero emissions compared with most cycles, which pollute the air at about the same level as a car built in the 1980s.

As Paul Teutul Sr., the driving force behind the bike shop, steered it around New York’s Columbus Circle on Wednesday, the only noise was the sound of truck drivers honking their horns in admiration of the sleek futuristic bike. Mr. Teutul, wearing his trademark red sleeveless T-shirt, says that driving the machine is “awesome.”

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/08/12/an-electric-chopper-what-would-dennis-hopper-think/

[thereismore]

1. Awesome. nt

[sharp_stick]

2. The average chopper buyer would never buy that

the only purpose these things seem to serve is to wake up the entire neighborhood when the druken prick that owns it decides to take it out at 2 AM.

[Ready4Change]

11. Yah, but I might, and there'd be a new chopper rider on the street.

Could create a new demographic to be marketed after.

Then again, I think I'd prefer something more like an electric sport bike.

[nykym]

3. Hey!

Where is his helmet?

[tularetom]

4. I want one of them!

I don't care if I have to buy it from idiot Paul Sr.

Maximum torque from the start. Unbelievable acceleration. No stopping for gas every 2 hours.

All I have to do is figure out how to hide it from Mrs. T.

[sharp_stick]

5. I'd like to see the look on my wifes face

when she got home and saw that in her garage space. No way I'm parking that bike on the street.

[Greyskye]

6. While it may not be an OCC custom...

These e-bikes are pretty sweet!



http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/ems_electric_motorcycle_gpr-s.php

[IDemo]

7. "It’s what OCC is calling the first custom electric motorcycle"?

Nice, but hardly the first custom electric motorcycle, or chopper:

[eppur_se_muova]

8. I would think a battery-driven helicopter would be too heavy ...

Never mind!

[Terry in Austin]

9. Needs a soundtrack

Coupla hefty speakers mounted in the fairing, blasting out an MP3 of nice loud gutsy Harley sounds...

No CO2, and plenty of putt -- best of both worlds!

:P

[Nathanael]

10. Wicked

The electric vehicle knows no bounds.

[pscot]

12. I'll bet it won't do a wheelie

n/t