A Good Reason to Ride an E-moto

These guys know how to sell bikes

If this doesn't work, what will?

M3 under her own power

Blair came in yesterday and asked "are you ready to go?"   Unbeknownst to me, he had spent all day Sunday knocking off the remaining items on the mechanical to-do list.  It took us the rest of the afternoon with the solder flux heavy in the air, but by 4 pm we'd had the last connection made and M3 was ready.  With some trepidation on both our parts, Blair threw the toggle switch and the the rear wheel spun merrily in the air.  Now it was time to drop her off the stand and let her rip.  Here she is leaving the shop for the first time under her own power.

My first impression was that the bike was stunningly silent.  Our Zero is relatively quiet but still has a lot of chain noise.  M3 glides along like a ghost.  The second impression is that Blair dialed in the handling perfectly.  We still have some fit-and-finish items to knock off, as well as getting the controller dialed in -- but the first ride was a big boost for all of us.  The bike was rolled back to her stand when darkness fell and it was off to the Boulder Brewery for celebratory beer and burgers. We'll post more reports as we get more miles on it.

The best Plug-In America PSA yet

Our cells are coming!

After a long wait, the boat with our 16 amp-hour cells has finally arrived in Seattle (from China, of course...) and they are in transit to Colorado.  If you are in the market for cells, I can highly recommend Dave Kois and Current EV Tech. 

Can someone tell me why the US has, for all practical purposes, totally abandonded the lithium ion cell market?  I've never been inside a cell factory, but it doesn't strike me as the kind of thing where China has a strategic advantage (e.g. not labor intensive, not an environmental disaster, etc).  I can envision the day where China wants to strangle competition for the EV market and chokes off the supply of cells to the rest of the world.  They've certainly demonstrated their proficiency in that sort of bare-knuckles competition in the rare earth metals market.