Essendon engineer’s electric motorbike could be in production by end of year
An Essendon engineer has developed Victoria’s first electric motorbike – and it could be coming to a street near you sooner than you think, with details now available on cost, speed and charge time.
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An Essendon engineer has built one of Australia’s first electric motorbike prototypes.
Dennis Savic, 27, designed the bike from scratch and has been working on it for the past five years.
“We designed the bike to make it really unique so it’s quite a retro-style with advanced technology,” he said.
It’s expected to have top speeds of around 170km/h and a charge time of between two and four hours depending on the model.
Three models will be available – the Omega, the Delta and the Alpha – and the bikes will retail from between $12,990 up to $23,990.
The Savic Motorcycles team expects to start production in August.
“We’ll be finishing off development, there’s just a few things we need to fix,” Mr Savic said.
“We’re trying to start delivering bikes to customers this year, so we’ll aim to deliver 10 to 20 bikes.”
The prototype made its debut at the Australian Motorcycle Festival in November last year.
“It was amazing, it was surreal to see how many people came to us and told us it was the best bike of the show,” he said.
Savic said he couldn’t wait to take the finished prototype for a spin.
“I promised myself the next bike I ride will be one of my own,” he said.
Mr Savic said electric power was the way forward because it was much simpler.
“For decades we’ve had internal combustion, and the amount of tech required to develop that is remarkable,” he said.
“Now we’re seeing a new trend of companies using electric propulsion because it’s a lot simpler.”
The ambitious engineer started his own company Savic Motorcycles fresh out of university.
“I started with no experience and I’ve been lucky enough to find some really great mentors along the way,” he said.
He said engineering was “1000 per cent” his life passion.
“It’s what I wanted to do since I was a kid, so it’s a long time coming,” he said.