First Ride Impressions of LEV’s Just Landed in Australia
Brisbane / Queensland
EMoS is a Brisbane based brand that’s pioneering the approval process and importation of a range of Light Electric Vehicles.
Just before Christmas 2020, I was able to thread the needle between covid border restrictions and meet with Founder and Chief Technical Officer Wolfgang Roffman, along with Tony Blackshaw, Head of Operations at Ride Sport, who are warehousing and distributing the EMoS products, as we previously wrote more about here.
They were all great fun – smooth and quiet with the trademark quick acceleration from a standstill that all electric powered machines offer.
Phil Latz
Ride Sport’s warehouse is at the back of a huge industrial complex with roads wide enough for container trucks. So it makes for an ideal quiet test circuit to test ride the new LEV’s.
I rode several EMoS models including the iTango, iTank, Wyld and the iLark.
The iLark at just 300 watts and 25 kph maximum speed, is the smallest, lightest and slowest of these machines.
Wolfgang advised that it’s legal to ride on the footpath in Qld, ACT and NT.
In the other states it’s considered a road vehicle and must be registered and ridden on the road.
All of the other machines are considered to be road vehicles and also must be registered.
In Qld, WA, SA and NT they’re classified as a moped and you can ride them with just a car drivers’ licence, provided the vehicles are speed limited to 50 kph.
In the other states, and for all states where the vehicle can do over 50 kph, they’re classified the same as a regular motorcycle and you have to pay both motorcycle registration and have a motorcycle riders’ licence.
Woflgang said that initial response to his new machines had been good, but sales were tough.
He said that even though people who test ride them love their quiet performance and new technology, pricing was an issue compared to low cost petrol scooter brands such as Kymco who he said sell 125cc scooters in Australia for under $3,000.
Kymco manufactures and sells over 570,000 scooters per year in countries across Asia.
He said that the global ‘PTW’ category that includes all forms of motorcycles, totals a fleet of 900 million vehicles. Of these 190 million are electric.
Most are in countries where the average person can’t afford a car. For example in Vietnam there are 500 PTW’s per 1,000 people, but in Australia, only 37 per 1,000.
So what were these machines like to ride?
They were all great fun – smooth and quiet with the trademark quick acceleration from a standstill that all electric powered machines offer. This is due to electric motors having maximum torque from zero revolutions per minute (rpm) whereas internal combustion engine (ICE) motors must first rev up to their optimum rpm.
The smaller wheeled iLark was significantly slower and also slightly harsher over bumps.
To me the iTango felt the best, followed by the iTank and the Wyld.
The iTango has a 1,200 watt Bosch motor and a maximum speed of 50 kph. The two 10 kg Lithium batteries give a 50 k range. It retails for $4,599 inc GST.
The larger iTank retails for $5,199 inc GST for the 50 kph version.