How are electric scooter able to produce so much torque?

electroman12

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I've been looking into buying myself an electric scooter and I keep seeing such high torque numbers like Vespa's Elettrica has something like 200 Nm and this other company called Zapp claims that their scooter has over 500NM of torque. Can someone please explain this to me because I currently drive a Yamaha MT-07 and it has 68NM and its already super twitchy on the throttle.
 
They'll be quoting the torque at the wheel instead of at the engine. If you multiply your MT-07's 68Nm of torque by its gear ratio you'll get the torque at the wheel to compare.
 
Welcome to the forum.

Your Yamaha makes 68NM at 6800 RPM measured at the flywheel. But imagine if you were to measure that at the axle, in first gear. If you have a 10 to 1 ratio for first gear, your back wheel would spin at 680 RPM (10 times less) but have 680nm torque. (10 times more) Yeah, I'm ignoring mechanical losses to make this easier.


That's what the electric scooter companies are doing: Cherry picking where they measure the torque. Also, an electric motor makes max torque at zero rpm, and the torque drops off in a straight line to it's max RPM. So starting off you have a huge amount of torque, but as your speed increases, your torque drops. That huge torque at start is why electrics often don't bother with gear boxes. 1 speed is all they need.
That's why the Zapp compare's it's self to a 300cc, and the Vespa is probably closer to a 80cc bike. The zapp has a 14kw motor, about 18.7 horsepower. the Vespa has a 4kw, 5.3 horse power motor. Compare that to 67 horsepower from your Yamaha.
 
Drunkskunk said:
Welcome to the forum.

Your Yamaha makes 68NM at 6800 RPM measured at the flywheel. But imagine if you were to measure that at the axle, in first gear. If you have a 10 to 1 ratio for first gear, your back wheel would spin at 680 RPM (10 times less) but have 680nm torque. (10 times more) Yeah, I'm ignoring mechanical losses to make this easier.

Ok this makes sense. I was wondering how they were going to keep the bike from constantly doing wheelies
 
I was driving a ktm 390 1500km and yes electric feels better but at 690 or mt07 like you have. Yeah I'd like to feel that power but I don't want to feel those vibrations in my hands after my run.

If you can get a hold of a zero motorcycle for 5000-8000 I would do it directly.
:D
 
:shock:
What!
You are saying electric companies are lying to its customers, NO WAY!

I bet they'd even estimate the range of that electric scooter to be 828 miles on ONE charge
:wink:
 
Yeah those range figures are always super unreliable, the numbers they post are best case scenarios.
 
If anyone can suggest an electric scooter that is great for the city. Something like 70km of range, a top speed of at least 80km and in that $5,000-$7,000 range it will be much appreciated.

From what I've found there are
- Silence S02
- Zapp i300
- Vespa elettrica
- NIU GT

If anyone has had any experience with any of them or can give me more suggestions that would really help.
 
electroman12 said:
Yeah those range figures are always super unreliable, the numbers they post are best case scenarios.

Downhill with a tailwind on a bowling alley.

Or, more likely, on a dyno with no wind resistance.
 
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