World's first electric Chopper parks up

A group of tattooed and portly custom Chopper builders from New York State and a straight-laced electronics firm make for an odd pair. But they are the duo behind Smart Chopper - an extreme leccy bike. Siemens_Smart_Chopper_01 Smart Chopper: mean and green Brainchild of Siemens USA and the folks at Orange County Choppers ( …

[Lionel Baden]

stupid !!!

the idea behind the massive engine on a motorboike is all gone !!

and shiny ipod white really doesnt suit bikers all that well

[Chris Miller]

American bikes

Look really cool, and if you need to cross 1,000 miles in a straight line there's nothing better. Take corners like the USS Nimitz, though.

[James 111]

100mph??

Sounds like it does 60 miles every 5 hours to me, or 12mph.

[D@v3]

electric Chopper...

i instantly thought of some new fangled electro death copter.

shame its just a bike (a mighty nice looking bike at that)

[Paul 4]

Interesting

But I think they will have alot more luck building sports bikes (Much more open to new ideas) and comuter bikes if they up the range to 70-100 miles. I do 50 miles per day, and bet alot of other people do around that, and never use my bike for going any distance much further than that, so this would be ideal.

[Allan George Dyer]

@Chris Miller

"if you need to cross 1,000 miles in a straight line there's nothing better"

Only if that's 1,000 miles with 17 regularly-spaced power sockets...

Mine's the leather one with the 1,000 mile extension cable in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

@James 111 - will you be my expert witness

James 111 - if I ever need an expert witness for a speeding ticket, can it be you?

If I get clocked at 110mph in a 30 limit, but only actually travel a journey of 5 miles before sitting in a friends house for an hour, will you tell the nice Mr Judge that I only did 5mph?

[Tom Chiverton 1]

No plans ?!?

No plans to make it ? It's the perfect commuter bike if those range and charge time numbers are good...

[JamesW]

@Mat Stace - will you be my expert witness

sure, that's how you avoid the average speed cameras on the motorways in places like France and Germany (or so I'm told).

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's Chopper is this?

Zed's. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby, Zed's dead.

***

Those OCC guys also featured on the last episode of Long Way Round (you know, where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman went round "the world" on a couple of motorbikes).

I'm kinda warming to the idea of getting a motorbike. For environmental reasons, of course. Definitely nothing to do with a mid-life crisis. No, definitely not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new fangled electro death copter overlords

oh wait...

Arrghhh. copter-overlord icon crisis!

[Anonymous Coward]

@Mat Stace

That'd be a fantastic defence- "So, I left at 12:17 and arrived at 1:43pm, a travel time of about an hour and a half. The journey was 90 miles of motorway and dual carriageway, so clearly I couldn't have been speeding as my average speed was less than the speed limit on the motorway. You accept Average Speed cameras as being accurate, so here's an accurately measured- and verifiable; all the timings are taken from properly auditable corporate building CCTV- average speed."

[Peter H. Coffin]

Predicting winners

I'm buying the next round if Jay Leno doesn't end up with this machine. He's already got a jet-powered one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uoATZMJrao

[The elephant in the room]

I was hoping for a helicopter

Paris, because she's got an electric chopper in her bedside drawer!

[Murray Pearson 1]

@Lionel Baden

"and shiny ipod white really doesnt suit bikers all that well"

That's because a black one wouldn't look like it's made by Siemens. Pearly white is perfectly appropriate! I wonder if it's sticky?

Once in an industrial park I noticed two adjacent tenants were Siemens and Cummins. I should have taken a photo!

[Stewart Haywood]

Electric Chopper

I thought you meant how it goes all sparky if you rub it hard with beaver fur.

[Evil_Medic]

@murray Pearson 1

Oh yeah? siemens also produces a high-end bovine AI straw filler. That is: it fills breeding straws with diluted bull semen for freezing and administratiion.

I'm a cytometry tech with one of these companies.

Coat? Yes the white one please.

[JC 2]

World's First?

Highly doubtful, though it might be the most technologically advanced (till the next thing comes along).

[raving angry loony]

defeating the purpose.

The only point of these uncomfortable, hard on your back, unreliable, poorly handling machines called "choppers" was the loud pipes. They spawned a whole generation of deaf fuckers who thing that loud pipes are somehow a good idea. This really defeats the purpose.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Murray Pearson 1

I dunno, their black-coloured traffic signal cabinets look OK.

[BonezOz]

Can I has cheezbooger?

2 words:

I want!

My daily commute is 20K's round trip, free parking in the city (or outside the office for security purposes) so 60 miles would more than cover it.

The only issue I can see is the lack of the "cruiser" sound :(

[TeeCee]

@Tom Chiverton 1

"....It's the perfect commuter bike......."

It's a chopper FFS! It's the perfect commuter bike in much the same way as a Sherman tank is the perfect dragster*.

*After typing that I came over all thoughtful and wondered exactly how many jet engines one could feasibly weld onto a Sherman tank..........

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, I think its a good approach

i guess people now get some wrong ideas about how choppers supposed to be all gas-guzzling big mean machine kinda stuff, but I believe the whole point of building choppers was to customize. If this trend of using recycled materials, batteries, LED lights and whatnot continues, whether just street bikes or chopper, I think its amazing on part of saving some greens on gas and still enjoying your ride. cheers to both parties involved here