Why the new Lotus electric bike costs almost $25,000
Lotus, an automotive company that hasn’t always been known as a leader in economical electric vehicles, is trying its hand at a new electric bicycle. But don’t think this is a sneaky way to get a cheap lotus, as even the newly announced Lotus Type 136 e-bike costs a small fortune.
The Lotus Type 136 was unveiled this week with the astronomical price tag of £20,000, or nearly US $25,000.
If you suspect that the price is so high thanks to that Lotus badge, you’re only partly right. That surely accounts for a few of the zeroes in the price, but some interesting engineering is also going on here.
It’s hard to roll out a 9.8 kg (21.6 pounds) electric bike without getting creative. For example, the battery is disguised as a small water bottle and the HPS motor drive system weighs a paltry 1.2 kg (2.6 pounds). That weight includes everything in the drive, with the motor itself weighing just 300 grams (0.66 pounds).
The bike’s frame focuses on aerodynamics thanks to the company’s design legacy, with Lotus leveraging its “design and engineering excellence from more than 30 years of road and track cycling success,” according to road.cc. The V-shaped handlebars add to the aerodynamic approach, making the bike as slippery in the airstream as possible. With Lotus unable to do anything about your own body’s aerodynamic performance (or lack thereof), at least the bike itself is tuned to have as little drag as possible.
More clues to the sky high price include features like the carbon fiber frame’s handmade lineage in Italy, as well as the frame’s “wing-shaped fork” and “vaulted chain stays” inspired by the Hope Lotus bike used at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The first Type 136 e-bikes off the line will be individually numbered as part of a limited edition, further increasing their value. Lotus says that additional models will follow as part of a larger production run with lower prices of around £15,000 (approximately US $18,500).
A big part of the price in the Lotus Type 136 comes down the super lightweight design, but it’s not the lightest e-bike we’ve ever seen. That honor belongs to the Freicycle e-bike that weighs just 6.872 kg (15.15-lb).
That model was never brought to production though, living on as a custom project. The lightest production electric bike we’ve seen is the HPS Domestique at just 8.5 kg (18.7 lb).
Hummingbird has the lightest folding e-bike at 10.3 kg (22.7 lb), while Trek claims to have the lightest full-suspension electric mountain bike at 15.75 kg (34.72 lb).
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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