What do you think about a Hawk conversion to Electric?

[jfeliciano15]

I have been thinking of trying to do a conversion to electric power on my Hawk in the near future. Has anyone seen or heard of anyone doing this yet?
I have been looking for the electric motor online and there are a few places I can purchase them from but I want to do more research.

[Ariel Red Hunter]

I have been thinking of trying to do a conversion to electric power on my Hawk in the near future. Has anyone seen or heard of anyone doing this yet?
I have been looking for the electric motor online and there are a few places I can purchase them from but I want to do more research.I don't think about it, because I don't think it is practical. Too heavy for one thing. If I was going to do it, I'd start with a mountain bike, the kind that has a disc front brake and suspension front and rear...ARH

[pistolclass]

Someone I work with has a Zero. Pretty capable electric bike. I wonder if the aftermarket stuff is as capable.

[Biker_Andy]

Interesting idea, I've been looking for an affordable electric motorcycle. CSC was talking about bringing one over from Zongshen. I never really considered building my own bike. I thought about building an electric car about 10 years ago but given up on the idea. The problem is usually the battery. Unless your buying 10,000 lithiums they are incredibly expensive individually. If you can find a suitable battery from a salvage then it might work. Otherwise range is very limited with cheaper power sources.

[pistolclass]

Between my companies incentives and tax rebates I can get a new leaf for about 10K. Not sure I can get a Zero for 70% off :)

[Mightbaal]

I have 2 self built electric mountain bikes. They are loads of fun. You can easily build one for about $1000. Even cheaper if you want but my 2000 Watt bike I built cost me around 1200 to build but it will hit 40 mph on the flats.

[jimwildman]

I have been thinking of trying to do a conversion to electric power on my Hawk in the near future. Has anyone seen or heard of anyone doing this yet?
I have been looking for the electric motor online and there are a few places I can purchase them from but I want to do more research.

I think the hawk is a bit heavy to make a good candidate for this.

Convert an old trials bike,, their lightweight, and trials ebikes make really good sense.

[Megadan]

I don't think the hawk is too impractical for an electrical conversion. The real practicality question would be cost. It's not hard to spend thousands doing an electric conversion, even on a motorcycle. You have to make decisions an compromises on the parts used depending on what you want out of the bike.

One of my favorite sayings in automotive racing applies across the board. Cheap, Fast, Reliable - pick two.

If all you want is an electric bike to simply get around town, then I agree with the suggestions about the bicycle conversions.

If you want to do this as kind of an exercise in engineering, or simply because you can, then I say go for it.

I would suggest doing a lot of research to figure out what type and how powerful of a motor you will want to run. Once you have an idea on what motor you would use, see if it is possible to get/make a battery pack capable of supporting that motor and the range you desire. Then also remember the controller and all of the other details involved. Most motors in the power range needed for a smaller motorcycle conversion are usually in the $400-800+ range depending on features (brushed vs. brushless, etc). Motenergy makes a pretty wide range of motors well suited for what you are after, so you could potentially start there.

[wheelbender6]

Many electric motorcycle conversions on endless-sphere.com. Read some posts and see what all is involved. It is far more expensive than replacing your ICE.
-You may have heard that BMW will produce a petro powered motorcycle that has an available electric hub motor on the front. The hub motor is not intended to operate all the time. It is used for escaping the mud and sand. Because the hub motor current is reversible, it can be used as a reverse to back you out of a parking space.

[jfeliciano15]

I will be doing some shopping around and also see if the numbers make sense. Thanks for all of the feedback.