Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Electric Motorcycle On the Horizon

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 11 2008 (IPS) - The electric motorcycle will be able to travel one kilometer per one cent of the Brazilian real (.006 dollars). This super-efficient bike will enter its final testing phase this month and will be launched in 2009 by the Brazilian electric company CPFL. The two-wheeler emerged from research at the University of Campinas’s interdisciplinary energy planning unit, which hopes to triple its 50-km maximum travel distance and reduce its battery recharge time from four to two hours.

“In the motorcycle, whose main characteristic is urban use, with an already very competitive cost, all that is needed is to improve autonomy, efficiency and recharging,” project coordinator Luiz Antonio Rossi told Tierramérica.

The lead in its current batteries will be replaced by lithium ion batteries in studies that will take about six more months.