Designer invents electric motorbike that 'goes like stink'

Ex-formula One and aerospace engineer Lawrence Marazzi has spent five years building the ultimate electric motorbike: meet the Saietta R.

The so-called storm trooper bike looks like something out of science fiction; goes from 0- 100km/h in under four seconds; and is much safer than traditional engines.

"Petrol bikes feature Victorian plumbing." Marazzi said. "You've got a highly carcinogenic, massively explosive liquid called petrol inches away from a 900 to 1000-degree exhaust pipe. If you tried to do that experiment in a lab, people would think you were nuts.

"We're the only electric bike using Formula One composite technology," said Marazzi. "This also makes it light, weighing just 200kg, strong and allows the Saietta to run 160km with a 19km reserve on a single charge."

Electric motorcycles are a fast-growing segment of the market. In 2010, the world produced 60 million motorbikes that ran on fossil fuel and 32 million electric and hybrid ones.

With an annual growth of 20%, electric-powered models will close the gap by 2015, when the same number of petrol and electric motorbikes being produced - about 70 million units of each.

Marazzi considered taking on the electric car market initially, but it was too mature, even in 2007, and costs were prohibitive.

"The capital costs in creating a significant motorcycle business are much smaller than those for cars," he said. "But the product price can be just as high. Put it this way, if you're selling a £15000 (about R244000) Ford Focus, it's a shed-load more work than selling a £15000 motorcycle."

This has been a labour of love for the designer-turned-entrepreneur. His company, Agility Global, built seven prototypes before settling on the current model. "Coming from an aerospace background, five years is pretty quick," he said.

Marazzi is hoping to sell 9500 of the bikes by 2018. "We designed the Saietta in a way that would allow us to scale production very quickly."

Its core markets are the US and the European Union, which have "incredibly high early adoption rates. There are also strong incentives in place to go electric. Gas motorcycles are taxed at up to 150%. Electric ones aren't taxed at all."

If the Saietta lives up to its name, market penetration should be swift. "Saietta means thunderbolt in an Italian dialect," Marazzi said. "But it actually comes from a turn of phrase that means: 'That goes like stink!'"