A Startup Is Launching A Surprisingly Good Electric Motorcycle That Costs Just $1,000

One of the biggest problems limiting the adoption of electric motorcycles is just the fact that they cost so much for what you get. An electric motorcycle with range even somewhat similar to your gasoline bike can run you $15,000 or more in America. Even harder is getting poorer nations into EVs, and one company is producing some of the cheapest, most practical motorcycles I’ve seen yet. This is the Zeno Emara, a new electric motorcycle promising up to 62 miles of real-world range. Depending on where you live, you can score one of these for the equivalent of just $1,000.

Electric motorcycles have simultaneously been one of the best and most disappointing EV developments in recent years. Today’s ‘lectro bikes make mountains of torque and produce infinite wheelies with just the twist of the throttle. They’re also whisper quiet, which might not even be something you thought you wanted in a motorcycle until you experience it for yourself. Electric motorcycles even handle beautifully.

But then you start digging into the details, and these bikes start looking a whole lot less attractive. Electric motorcycles in the mid-teens for pricing still go fewer than 100 miles on a charge. If you spend $20,000 or over, you can go over 100 miles, but only if you take slow roads. Some of these very expensive machines can’t even benefit from fast-charging technology, so you’re stuck topping up for hours.

Truth be told, there’s nothing wrong with the range. The problem is how much you’re paying to go so few miles. Yet, if you look outside of the United States or Europe, there’s a whole world of possibilities out there. The Zeno Emara doesn’t go very fast or very far, but it doesn’t cost much money, either, so it all makes sense! Then there’s the weird part: This bike’s origin story involves Tesla.

From Model Ys To Motorcycles

Zeno was founded in 2022 by Tesla alum Michael Spencer. He built a team including former Apple TV engineer Rob Newberry, former Lucid powertrain engineer Swaroop Bhushan, and other engineers from the likes of Gogoro and Tesla. Spencer’s vision for Zeno is to do for emerging markets what Tesla did for EVs in America.

As TechCrunch notes, bodaboda, or motorcycle taxis, are a huge deal in East Africa. Riding on a motorcycle taxi helps commuters cut through dense urban traffic and get to their destinations for less than riding in a car-based taxi. Of course, this is also cheaper than owning a car, too. Sadly, the motorcycle taxi riders get the short end of the stick as they end up spending around 50 percent of their income on fuel alone.

The team at Zeno sought to solve this issue and more. If motorcycle taxi owners could spend less on fuel, they could keep more of their pay.

Now, Zeno could have just done what a lot of startups in America and Europe do and just slapped a battery and an electric motor into a motorcycle frame. However, there’s a huge limitation there. Once you drain that battery, such as when you’re working as a delivery driver or taxi driver, you have to park and wait for the battery to recharge, which means losing income.

The solution for this has largely come from the likes of Taiwan’s Gogoro (above), which has pioneered a battery swapping system. If you’re riding a Gogoro-branded scooter and run out of juice, you just ride to a station, pull out your depleted battery, and drop in a charged battery. Boom, you get back on the road in an even shorter time than it would take to fill a gas tank.

Zeno had operated silently for the first couple of years of its existence. As TechCrunch notes, Zeno tested over a few dozen electric Chinese bikes in Kenya and found out that they just weren’t tough enough for the environment. Locals were also disappointed that they had these battery-powered motorcycles, but the batteries couldn’t be taken out and used as a power station. So, Zeno decided to take a different path.

Startups in Africa have embraced battery-swapping technology. Back in 2022, I wrote about the Roam Air, an electric motorcycle with 56 miles of range and easily swappable batteries for just $1,500. Well, Roam isn’t alone. Joining in on this African EV moto revolution are Ampersand Solar, Arc Ride, Spiro, Zembo, and now, Zeno.

The Emara

Zeno is targeting markets in Africa and India with an ambitious goal. Not only are Zeno’s motorcycles supposed to get up to 60 miles of range, but Zeno says that they’ll cost less than a comparable gasoline motorcycle. There’s an asterisk to that, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Zeno says that the Emara is supposed to be like the equivalent of a 150cc gasoline motorcycle, but it’s designed to do almost everything better. It’s designed to carry 551 pounds, climb a 30-degree slope, have a top speed of 56 mph, and have a motor that punches out 10.7 HP. Now, some of those are impressive.

A common 150cc motorbike might have a weight limit of 350 pounds or above 400 pounds, depending on the model, so the Emara sounds pretty rugged in that regard. That said, the Emara comes a few ponies and some mph shy of the capabilities of a good 150cc gasoline motorcycle, but it’s not far off.

The real magic is what’s underneath. The Zeno Emara is powered by at least one 2 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery, and there’s a slot on the bike to carry a second. This is supposed to be good for up to 60 miles of real-world range. These batteries are removable, which allows them to be brought inside and charged at home. Or, you can take the batteries out and use them for emergency power or as a campsite power station.

Zeno also took a look at all of the other electric motorcycle projects going on in Africa and took note that a lot of them look like high school shop class projects. Because of this, Zeno decided to do extra work to create a more finished product. Basically, the idea is that part of the reason you’d buy an Emara is because you think it looks cool, not just because it can save you money.

Even the marketing tries to be hip and cool. I mean, check this out:

The bike even has four riding modes, a color LCD display, LED lighting, and disc brakes on both ends. Sure, there are no fancy radars or anything like that here, but there’s some pretty modern tech at play here. This sounds like something I would be glad to zip around town on.

The last two mechanisms in the Zeno plan are the battery swapping stations and the purchasing scheme. A buyer has three options for their Emara. The ideal customer is someone who buys the motorcycle and then pays a subscription for the battery. In doing this, the initial purchase price is said to be lower than an equivalent gasoline motorcycle. According to Zeno, the subscription is $17 per month for up to 48 kWh of energy or $29 per month for up to 120 kWh of energy.

Subscription customers will gain access to Zeno’s network of battery swap stations, where you just ride up to the station, pull out your depleted battery, and then drop in a charged battery. Alternatively, Zeno offers an option that works like a pre-paid phone where you buy a bike without batteries, and then pay by the kWh consumed to use loaned batteries. That option costs 61 cents per kWh consumed, and these customers can also use the swapping stations.

Finally, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to bother with subscriptions or anything like that, you can just buy the motorcycle and its two batteries outright. That version costs $1,500, depending on the market and currency.

As of now, Zeno is targeting Africa and India with pricing roughly equivalent to $1,000 for the model with the battery subscription. Zeno says it’s selling the first 5,000 battery subscription-based units in India for about $750 before the price goes up to $1,000.

This price is definitely competitive. As of right now, a brand-new, roughly equivalent 150cc motorcycle costs around $1,500 in East Africa. So, technically, if a buyer gets the subscription version of the Emara, they can save a little wad of cash on the initial purchase compared to buying a new gas bike. But what’s also cool is that the full price of an Emara is similar to a 150cc motorcycle.

Zeno says it already has a waitlist that’s thousands of people long, and the list has been getting longer since the order books opened up last week. The company hopes to deliver the Emara later this year, and with luck, it’ll make a dent in the highly competitive low-cost motorcycle markets in Africa and India.

Honestly, the part of this story that gets me is how great these bikes would be for Americans. The Zeno Emara’s spec sheet sounds similar to what you’d get with a Honda Grom or a CFMoto Papio SS, but in all-electric flavor. Even at $3,000, I bet the Emara could find a small market here. There are some American riders out there who are okay with a lower range so long as it comes with a lower price, and this hits that spot. Sadly, like all of the other super cheap electric bikes I’ve written about, this one will remain forbidden fruit.