I apologize, but a mere 12 mph average speed doesn’t suffice for praising the range.
I want you to understand, I believe
electric motorcycles are cool
. They’re
hysterically powered
They remain quiet, ensuring my neighbors don’t dial the police.
complain to the HOA
. And for the most part, the designs have been pretty dang neat.
However, for now, they have their spot. And that spot is tackling dirt.
That’s due to the fact that present electric motorcycles have extremely poor range. To put it mildly, many of them struggle when covering distances over 70 miles and require an additional eight-hour charging time after they run out of power. This holds true even under ideal conditions.
best of conditions.
A powerful opposing wind or a Big Mac will decrease that range even more.
And that might come as a surprise to some readers, especially given the big news that
Verge’s TS Pro
electric bike just set a new Guinness Book of World Records record for electric motorcycle range at a whopping 193 miles! Do you hear that, folks? 193 miles on a single charge! That’s nearly combustion engine range!
There’s just one issue. It absolutely doesn’t have 193 miles of range. Nowhere even close, in fact. Let me explain how these numbers are real fudged.
Now, before we get into the “record, ” let’s talk about what Verge states right out of the gate. According to the company, the Verge TS Pro features a 20.2-kilowatt-hour battery that the company states is good for an eye-watering 217 miles in the city and 124 miles on the highway.
However, there are several important caveats regarding these figures. The detailed notes mention that the 217-mile figure represents “a calculated estimate by Verge for smooth city driving with occasional stops in an urban setting at lower speeds.” As for the highway range, it states this is “an estimated value provided by Verge for continuous and constant travel on highways at a speed of 56 mph.”
The Verge points out that the EU-rated driving range is just 119 miles per charge, explaining that this standardized European metric includes both urban and motorway driving conditions using a dynamometer test setup which involves fairly intense acceleration and braking phases. This testing procedure takes into account the car’s weight but does not factor in the impact of the vehicle’s aerodynamics.
So Verge indicates that in the
best-case
Scenario: Without considering rider weight, wind resistance, and tested on a low-friction dynamometer, the TS Pro manages only about 119 miles per charge. So, how did it set that 193-mile record? Simple—they drove at an extremely slow pace and circled London.
As reported by our sibling publication
InsideEVs
Verge achieved this milestone by maintaining a speed of only 12 miles per hour during its 193-mile journey around London. Personally, I feel somewhat frustrated with the company for doing this because it might mislead people about the true capabilities of their machinery.
I understand the attraction of e-bikes, truly I do, but making claims like achieving 193 miles on one charge undermines efforts overall and also hurts your business. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to distinguish fact from exaggeration, and these statements push credibility to its limit. Frankly, this is annoying because I consider the Verge an awesome bike with innovative concepts behind it. Such declarations aren’t helpful at all.
