An All-American Sportbike Goes Electric via wired

It’s about time an American sportbike company jumped into the eMoto scene, and if you thought Erik Buell would be the guy to do it, think again. Roehr is the new champ in all-American motorcycles, and it isn’t kidding around with its electric bike. If it looks and performs anything like the Roehr 1250sc, we are in for a real treat.

With racing in his blood and experience working with the likes of Jimmy O’Donnell to win the Battle of the Twins, Walter Roehrich took his passion for racing and put it — and a whole lot of money — where his mouth is. He started Roehr Motorcycles about two years ago and launched the Roehr 1250sc (pictured above) not one year later. It’s a power-drunk two-wheeler that weighs 432 pounds, produces 180 hp and offers enough go-fast goodies to fill a grown man’s toy store.

Now Roehrich has his sights firmly fixed on a wicked battery-powered brother to the 1250sc and wants to race it in the TTXGP motorcycle green grand prix. The cleverly nicknamed eRoehr is slated to hit the market this spring and cost one-third as much as his closet competitor, Mission Motors and the slick Mission One.

“We don’t want to be $60K to $70K. So cost had a lot to do with it,” Roehrich said. “We want to sell these to people.”

A sneak-peek rendering of the Roehr electric superbike.

Roehrich used mass-manufactured parts engineered and tested for full life-cycle reliability to assemble a package any two-wheeled junkie would want to throw a leg over.

The 35-kilowatt AC motor made by Hi Performance Golf Cars provides 45 horsepower at 96 volts. The beauty of the AC motor means no brushes, no commutator to resurface and no arcing. Translated into lay terms, it’s 100 percent maintenance-free and the company claims it ran for 10 years nonstop in testing. Running them at slightly higher voltage, Roehrich ekes out 48 horsepower at 8000 rpm and 105 pound-feet of torque in the eSupersport.