2016 Victory Empulse TT - Test Ride Review

POV Test ride and review of the 2016 Victory Empulse TT eletric motorcycle. I ride the bike through the city and on the freeway to get a feel for it and I give my impressions on how it rides. This is a new model from Victory, comparable to the Zero Motorcycles Zero S or the Harley Davidson Livewire electric motorcycle.

From Victory's website: "470lbs, 54 HP, 61 FT-LBS. This is a street legal electric race motorcycle. Accelerating up to 100MPH+ and the battery fully charges in 3.9 hours. Where it matters most, the Empulse TT is fast. It is 10,400 watt hours of proof that Victory doesn't just prove performance, we advance technology.
Adjustable Suspension
Lightweight Cast Aluminum Wheels
Regenerative Braking"

Filmed with the GoPro Hero 3+ Black in 1080p 30fps Superview.

Electric - Green - Zero Motorcycles - Livewire - ENERGICA EGO - Lightning LS218 - Naked Bike - Race Bike

[sleekitwan]

On the question of Transmission - Brammo say it enables the motor to be smaller. Electric motors produce max torque at zero rpm, but they don't have an infinite amount of it, so transmission permitting a change of ratio is still useful for the same old reasons. Mainly on the highway, it is a question of finding the best speed and gear to roll along at, to save battery charge. Hiway is the worst for battery drain on electric vehicles, they can't leverage their advantage of regenerative braking - so this road test was actually the harshest possible for the battery range. The redline is mentioned a lot in the video, but of course the electric motor has the advantage of not shaking itself to bits if it over-revs, it is fundamentally never unbalanced, it is a balanced rotor spinning and probably up to 15, 000 or even 25, 000 rpm, there is no issue except overheating. GOOD REVIEW - thanks to the reviewer, he covered a lot of key points. Chicken-wing - a new term for me.

[UhuruFrontier]

You really can not put the HD in this category for comparison because the HD is not a production bike. It is a test bike and by the looks of it, the Live Wire will never see the light of day in a HD showroom. HD is all talk and mostly bull shit when it comes to producing a new bike. Good on Victory for bringing this bike to market.

[markhopkinsphoto]

I rode one the other day with a modified gearbox. The company my buddy worked for gave it to him to trick out. No shifting at all and it was super torquey.

[flarbear]

A thought about rev matching. It's not necessary because the clutch isn't necessary for upshifts or most downshifts. After owning the Brammo version for 3 years and a few thousand miles I've only used the clutch to upshift maybe a handful of times and I've used it to downshift less than 20% of the time. The trick is to give a light pressure on the gear shift and then unload the transmission briefly (perhaps .1 to .2 seconds). Basically, press lightly with the foot and flick the wrist and you are in the next gear up or down. This technique works reasonably well on most ICE bikes as well, but with the incredibly low mass of the electric motor and the fact that the electric process means you can go from full power to 0 torque in fractions of a second means it was pretty much born for clutchless shifting.

[fendermon]

Just what I was looking for...a real riders review, not some marketing fluff or music video to distract from the facts, thanks!

Also, that battery range really sucks balls. It sounds like a three speed trans wouldn't be a bad thing as well.

[Dracati]

The lightweight and handling flick-ability are sweet !!!
They'll have to figure out the Gauge & 'clutch?' situation, IMO
Looks good doh !!!

[FiercePhxMoto]

that would be cool if Victory would build a gasoline version of this bike.

[yohvh]

that headlight is like.. used on 10 models of all brands?

[flarbear]

Something is wrong with that tach and it may have been affecting how you rode it.

At a stop the motor is not moving yet the tach is reading around 5k. It looks like the needle is installed backwards because if you draw a line back through the center it extends back to 0rpm at a stop, which is where it should be. If that is the case, then you never got much beyond 3-4k even though it looked like you were at redline except for a few small times when you were doing roll-ons. The motor also sounded like it was at those low rpms instead of 5-6k+ where it should be.

The motor doesn't change much through the power band so the issue with running in a lower gear isn't so much that "you weren't in the power band" as it was "you were in a couple of gears higher than you needed to be" and so you were using a gear that was less performance oriented than you could have been. You would also notice more difference between the gears if you rode up further in the RPM band. I ride mine pretty much so I never go below 4k except to stop and I keep it somewhere in the 5-6k range when I'm cruising along at a steady state and I'm not afraid to go up until the lights start coming on north of 7k. This is distinctly different from an ICE bike where you only go to the high RPMs when you are aggressively using power. In the case of an EV motorcycle you can pretty much stay up there as there is no drawback in terms of efficiency.

[hdaviator]

Why does an electric bike need a transmission? I thought that was one of the advantages of electric vehicles. All the power you need whenever you need it.

[benborafker]

how much miles did you run this ride?
in ur opinion TT or zero Sr?
ty

[jimmiejohnsson]

I like the idea of an electric bike, but right now the price is just not justified. The vegas 8 ball (same brand) is a whopping 7 000USD less than this bike. I can get a whole lot of gas for 7 000 USD, I could even get a really good second-hand bike all in for that money. It needs to be the otherway around, cause no matter how you look at it, these bikes cant get you more than like 70-80 miles without the need for a recharge penalty of at least 3-4 hours (if you opt for extra battery-charger gear, otherwise more like 8 hours). This remains just a pretty useless toy for people with a lot of cash laying around. Which is sad. I hope that changes