Church Of MO – First Impression: EMB Lectra Electric Motorcycle

With all the hoopla surrounding the Harley-Davidson LiveWire, this Church of MO feature would like to remind everyone about Motorcycle.com‘s long-standing involvement with electric vehicles. Sure this includes the early days of both Zero and Brammo, but our relationship with e-bikes stems even further back: To 1998, and an obscure machine called the EMB Lectra. About the size of a modern day Honda Grom, the Lectra is entirely outdated when compared to modern electric motorcycles. However, in the course of 16 years, electric motorcycles like the Lectra have matured from being considered toys, to becoming embraced by none other than Harley-Davidson. Read on to see just how far we’ve come.

As with most news coverage of the three deadly “D’s” (death, disaster and decadence), a certain amount of collective hand wringing occurs in order to parcel out the blame, necessary fuel for the popular cult of victimization. The back story of El Niño is the damage capitalism and technology has done to the environment. We are the villains, collectively, Americans and their fossil fuel addiction in particular. The victim is Mother Nature, and El Niño the behavioral result of a century of physical abuse.

The centerpiece of the Lectra is its variable-reluctance brushless electric drive system. EMB’s press release states that the “absence of permanent magnets and a new patented rotor structure that combines with custom integrated control circuitry provides unique superior performance at a competitive price.” Translated, it means the bike is cheap with reasonable power delivery. It costs only $3995 USD, and can reach boulevard cruising speeds of 30 to 35 mph.

For more information on the Lectra call EMB at (707) 82E-BIKE (823-2453) or visit their website at www.electric-motorbike.com. [Don’t bother calling or clicking; EMB is long gone -TS]

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