Electric Yamaha Dirt Bike?! SSE Electric Test

foreign [Music] [Music] what's up guys I'm Josh mosman from Motocross Action magazine and we have an exciting video for you today as we are riding a custom built homemade electric dirt bike [Music] foreign it's been raining in Southern California we got snow-capped mountains behind us and Dane sires he drove 22 hours from Cedar Falls Iowa to deliver this bike to us today for us to have some fun on electric motorcycles are unique I haven't ridden too many I've ridden the Ulta a couple times I rode the cake motorcycle a few times I haven't got to ride the Stark bar yet electric bikes they are very controversial in the Motocross and Supercross World I personally love two strokes I love four strokes I see where electric bikes can be a lot of fun from my limited experience riding them today we're riding this custom built bike it's been over two years in the making we've been trying to line this up so Dane give us a little rundown of reason why you would spend the time money to come out here and let us ride your bike well I thought this would be a good platform to just get some of the information out there on electric bikes I feel like everybody is very polarized One Direction or the other if they hate them and nobody actually has real conversations about how fun these things actually are I built this bike again just because I thought it would be fun to have one I I have never spent any time riding an Alta I haven't ridden any other electric bike the only thing that I had to compare this to was my Yamaha 450f and I wanted the bike to act just like that for the most part I think it does that would be fun and I thought you guys would like it and I thought the readers would think it was cool there's definitely a lot of electric builds that are out there that are you know homemade bikes I haven't really seen an in-depth review of any of them we'll see what we what we end up with today and should be fun all right so Dan here he's not anti-2-stroke or four stroke or are you oh God no um I've got ice tires on my Yamaha 252 stroke a couple of 450 F's I mean I just I just like motorcycles man what I found is every you know different combustion technology has better applications some than the other and it's all a different experience and that's really what I think it's about is having an experience that's enjoyable you're a mechanical engineer at John Deere explain a little bit about your background for what you do for work yeah the work story is a little interesting I've been I did recently join up with the electrification efforts of John Deere we've got some really cool stuff coming out so my official title is I'm a senior mechanical engineer with the battery team last thing I would say before we start riding this bike is I'm excited to see what it's like on the track you said earlier something about two strokes and four strokes going away you you projected that it's going to be a long ways out oh my God I don't think we'll see the internal combustion engine go in our in our lifetimes we've got easily 50 years left on Highway off Highway we'll never have to worry about anybody coming to take our our two strokes all right well that's a breath of fresh air electrification and Motocross is like we said a controversial topic but two strokes four strokes aren't going away Dane built this bike to meet your own needs right you you personally don't need to ride an hour-long Moto at the track you have fun with your motos you bring the generator out and today we're going to get an experience of what this bike is like on the track so let's get this thing out let's Splash through some puddles and have some fun foreign [Music] foreign a lot of what you're looking at here may not be very familiar an electric bike there's three major components you have your motor you have your motor controller or your inverter is another thing that it's called and then you have the battery so what we're looking at here on the side the battery of the bike this is around three and a half kilowatt hours it's about 100 volts motor here is a brushless motor from a company called mod energy it's basically an AC motor motor controller is what takes the DC current from the battery turns that into something that can turn the motor one other aspect about this bike you'll notice it is direct drive from the shaft of the motor to the to the rear axle since I have a little smaller battery than some of these might every little efficiency loss is something that I'm taking into account here to get the most ride time I did 3D print some of these parts down here again just some beauty cover type Parts but the rest of it is you know basically stock 2015 Yamaha chassis display on the bike this is actually an e-bike like bicycle style display a but the the company does such a good job making these that they are easily adaptable to really any project so I actually use this display for a few other projects that I've done and it's just it's very simple and it tells you exactly what you need to know no more no less so on that I have my amp hours capacity of the battery it tells me how much I've used it can also tell me instantaneously how many kilowatts I'm making but obviously when you're riding it you don't really have time to look down and look at it the handlebar switches so one interesting part the bike does have reverse it it's helpful when you're loading or unloading putting it in the garage switch for the regenerative braking where I can turn it on and turn it off again just another unique aspect of electric bikes where it's a complete experience like it it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of tunability with it for the future I'm not 100 sure where I'm gonna go from here possibly More Voltage custom motor [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Applause] what's up guys Dennis Stapleton here fortunate enough to come out and ride with the Motocross Action crew today on the electric motorcycle I've been fortunate to ride multiple electric motorcycles all the way from the BRD which turned into the Alta from the KTM free ride to multiple Saran e-mountain bikes to the bicycles that they have over over the years of growing the electric platform and then also dealing with a lot of mini kids on all the e-mini Cobra and KTMs and a lot of the electric bikes the electric platform is growing but by no means is it going to take over the gas powered bikes in our generation what's unique and cool about these bikes there's so many options to them there's so much fun stuff to play with these bikes are incredible to trail ride I think that will be the biggest market for the first generation of mass of e-bikes you can take this Bike Stop on a hill go up a hill things about the e-bikes that are different most of the bikes have their own chassis this bike in particular has its engine put in a yz450 dirt bike frame so it handles a lot similar to what we're used to the hop isn't as big off gas the Turning has a more familiar feel as a motocross bike rather than some of the bikes that have been ground up to their spec with electric engine some things that are cool about this bike it has reverse I found out I cannot ride farther than three feet in Reverse but that is a cool option for loading unloading or even trying to work on your balance technique also this bike has the generative switch that allows it to handle a little better in the bumps when it's on it's a little bit more free the little bumps don't feel as big as the big bumps off gas is a little easier to get in the turn overall this bike was fast it handled pretty good the hardest and most unique thing to get used to after going back and forth on a gas bike would be the throttle position for wheelie managing ruts and turns they do have the capability nowadays to tune the power for your liking so that will be something in the future when people get electric bikes that they'll be able to manage and fine-tune throttle position for the riding ability and what they're looking for this bike was built in the garage and it's quite impressive how well it works they've got to watch other people build electric bikes to take ideas and work on their platform but this bike is as competitive as any of the other bikes that have come out on the market I think one of the favorite items is that it's in a Motocross chassis straight up handles okay turns okay does nothing weird but it would be competitive with any other electric bikes that have come out or that are on the market [Music] foreign foreign [Music] guys what an awesome day testing the SSE Yamaha electric dirt bike it's not a Yamaha but Yamaha chassis we had a beautiful track today perfect conditions with dirt Dane drove 22 or 25 hours all the way from Cedar Falls Iowa to come out here and let us ride his bike we're very thankful for that I'm super impressed that he spent he says about five grand into Parts on this bike obviously he spent his own time in the garage working on it and figuring all the details out but not that expensive to make this bike what it is he found an old 2015 Yamaha yz450f chassis through his electric motor in there it's at a direct drive so straight from the motor to the counter shaft sprocket there's no other gears to Rob power there's no other transmission or gearbox so that makes it a little bit simpler and also helps him manage energy and manage the battery as well so my electric bike experience isn't as much as Dennis Stapleton but today I was super impressed with this bike we did have a lot of traction today and that's the biggest thing with electric dirt bikes that I've noticed is that when you have traction it's robbing power from the bike it takes more electric power to to make you go when there's a lot of traction but when the track is hard packed and Slick that's where electric bikes are the most fun because they they wind up you're kicking the rear end out and they feel super fast and you don't have to waste a lot of power you're a lot more managing power on a dry slick track so that's why you see all of the Stark varg videos are done on dry Dusty tracks where it's hard packed and you can't see how the bike really works when it's deep sand loam or in the mud same thing with Ulta you don't see a lot of Ulta videos from back in the day when they were riding in deep sand or in the mud that's not where electric bikes shine they shine in the dry Gatey tracks and that's where I've ridden Altos before today riding this SOC we brought them out to a truck that did have some Sandy corners and did have a lot of good traction so on the harder pack sections this thing was super super fun I'd say easier to ride than the 125 easier to ride than a 450 because it's just simple twist the throttle and go you got hand brakes that makes things pretty simple because I get to leave my feet on the pegs the whole way around the track I'm a trainer Panda craft Christian Motocross Camp I train kids out there twice a year for three days in a row and I'm always talking about feed on the pegs ride on the balls of your feet press through the foot pegs to control the bike your foot bags are the best place to control it I talked to Eli Tomac at Anaheim one what's your favorite drill to practice on during the week keeping your feet on the pegs all the way around the track not to Eli Tomac he's been practicing that for years he's really pioneered it him and Ken roxan keep their feet on the pegs all the way around the track and Supercross and in Outdoors a lot I try my best to do it it's not easy but on an electric dirt bike it is so much easier and with the handbrake it's good and bad today it was good because I got to keep my feet in the right position but it's bad because I feel like it's a clutch so I go to take a try to Roost coming out of a corner get a cool Motocross Action photo for Trevor Nelson and I grabbed the clutch only at the rear brake and it slows me down and I feel like a goofball so that's something that takes some time to get used to but overall very very impressed with this bike from the little amount of time I've spent on an Alta I'd say this is very very comparable I'd say we're we could battle and uh if I had one today it'd be better but I'd say very very comparable the KTM free ride this far exceeds that bike's capabilities a lot faster a lot better handling this is a motocross bike the Free Ride is more of an adventure play in the backyard bike I've also ridden the cake Electric Dirt Bikes super expensive bikes super modern looking and cool but they do not handle like a motocross bike and they don't handle like this I haven't ridden the Stark bark and not very many people have but we're looking forward to eventually riding that someday other things about the soc electric bike today we did some lap time comparisons you'll have to stay tuned for another video on that but this thing was very very competitive in the air I was reaching for the rear brake pedal a couple of times you can see I probably get a little sketchy in some of these video clips so it's a little bit hard to get used to having that rear brake on the hands we didn't want to get it wet today there's a lot of puddles today so we're kind of dive dodging the puddles today trying to get around them Dane said you can get the tires and and the bottom half of the bike wet but try not to get the top half wet so another big thing about the SSC electric bike is that Dane is smart enough to know that Yamaha is better at building chassis than he is he built this motor he sourced the motor he sourced the battery he used his own skills to machine it into a Yamaha chassis but Yamaha spent a lot of time developing the 2015 yz450f chassis they know what to do to make this bike handle well it's got the great KYB Forks that we all know and love on it the SSS spring Forks Yamaha spent a lot of time developing this bike although the 2015 Yamaha 450 isn't the best handling for stroke on the market I'm the first one to say that Dennis stapleton's probably the second one but when you put an electric motor in there it does handle pretty well and I was definitely impressed two words that you don't hear together Nimble and 2015 Yamaha I guess that's three words well we said those things today this thing was pretty Nimble and pretty impressive of the 23 Yamaha 450 that's a lot more Nimble but Dane used the Yamaha chassis he used yamaha's swing arm used their wheels use their suspension and I think that's one huge step ahead that he has over companies like Stark over companies like Ulta cake surround that all developed their whole new chassis all themselves that's pretty difficult to do Dane knows that he's not a chassis Builder he's an electric guy and he made this Yamaha into a pretty cool electric bike you guys are probably wondering where can I buy this kit well Dane is not selling it he's built this bike for him and meets all of his expectations and he's had a lot of fun building it he's not planning on selling a kit ever he says he will never sell a kit because he doesn't want to deal with the emails and the phone calls of complaints and people trying to put the bike together if he sells an SSE electric bike which he might if we get a lot of good comments and feedback and views on this video if he sells a bike he said it would be a complete bike something that he builds completely Wheels chassis motor battery and then he sells it to you in one big large piece that's a big if though so right now Dane's having a lot of fun building this bike I'm very impressed with it and we had a lot of fun riding it today so thank you guys for watching motocrossactionmag.com for more of our latest videos more of what's going on Supercross and Motocross World also we have an upcoming this week in mxa video where I put this bike head to head against a combustion engine two-stroke stay tuned for that one thanks for watching see in the next one foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: motocross action magazine

Views: 137,272

Keywords: electric, dirt, dirt bike, battery, watts, converter, future, sport, sports, tech, technology, build, uniqe, cells, moto, motocross, action, cali, socal, california, adventure, outdoors, desert, beauty, test, tested, testing, yamaha, yz450f, class, model, athlete, fitness, new, opinion, review, magazine, jump, trick, stunt, gap, course, track, private, unique, special, amazing, incredible, wild, nuts, attack, sound, fast, furious, speed, speeding, speedy, quick, fierce

Id: de50nfe2z5E

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 30 2023