Tromox is the only dual-purpose electric motorcycle available in South Africa. We had to have a look
[Music] Hello and welcome to the show. Today we are looking at a brand new brand of motorcycles or at least a new one to South Africa. It’s a company called Tromach with a range of smaller, stylish motorcycles designed by the Fashion Romantics in Italy and built by the Industrious Crew in China. It looks pretty good, if not a little small, but the Andromeics is about small runarounds. This model is called the MC10 Trail X, designed very much with off-road in mind. Oh, and it’s electric, so no pressure. And to ensure not pressure for the small motorcycle, we enlisted the services of the least smallest person we knew, Sean Henley. Okay. Tromox MC10. It’s uh the first proper electric dualpurpose bike I’ve ridden, and it’s performing better than I expected. really nice suspension. Um I’m 150 odd kilograms at 2 m tall and I was expecting to be cramped on this bike and expecting the suspension to bottom out uh every every time I hit a lump or a bump. Like I said, I was expecting to be cramped on the bike, but I’m not. Um mainly because I don’t have an engine protruding up in between my legs and a a fuel tank that I have to work around. So, it gives you a lot more space. There no radiator shrouds. Um, so yeah, it does give you quite a bit more space. [Music] [Music] It weighs in at just 102 kg, which is nothing. So, it’ll duck and dive to the rers’s requirements. That’s aided by a small aluminum frame, a compact motor, and a battery system, all held a loft by adjustable suspension. [Music] Well, I got going through a corner. It’s fairly stable through a corner. The one thing I do miss is, well, taking time to get used to is the back brake. Um, it doesn’t have a rear uh rear brake pedal. And being an old off-road rider, getting into the corner too quick. I’m used to tilting in and then uh uh hitting the back brake when I needed to uh get the wheels to step out a bit more or etc. Uh here the back brake is on the right handlebar and it’s taking me some time to get used to that. The other thing I keep doing and it’s just old school basically to set my mind back to riding DCTs. I keep on looking for a clutch and a gear lever. [Music] As is the way with electric vehicles, there is indeed no need for a pesky gearbox or clutch, except for a reverse gear that merely makes the motor turn the other way round. Now, we are familiar with such things as CC’s and cylinders and born stroke and fuel injection. With electric, we are still familiarizing ourselves with the terminology. Instead of cylinders and things, we have something called an SP hot mid-mounted motor. Instead of fuel injection or carburetors, it has something called an FOC controller with advanced C communication designed for high-speed data exchange and superior error detection. That sounds magnificent. And while we’re all just nodding dumbly, let’s take something that we do understand. It pushes 17 horsepower, which is pretty good for such a small machine. However, it isn’t in power where electric motors flourish. The electric language is torque, and this thing pushes an astounding 350 Newton meters of those. And it it is pretty quick. Uh it’s 350 Newton meters or something in the back wheel. You can feel it. I’m riding in eco mode at the moment. Quite frankly, I’m a little bit nervous to put it in uh the full Perry Perry mode in the sport mode, the full beans. Uh in eco mode, I think I can get about 60 62 63 ks an hour. Okay, putting it onto uh sport mode. It’s suddenly a lot more perky. Okay, now we’re really cooking along. Sport mode is the one you want to ride on, but I’ve also noticed that it has reduced my uh my range quite significantly. Uh while I was on eco mode uh on what are we sitting on? We’re sitting about 80% battery. I had uh just over 110 km range. flick it onto uh sport mode and suddenly we dropped to like 60 Yeah. 60 ks an hour uh or 60 60 km range. Sorry. [Music] Am I brave enough to hit the water? Electricity and water. Are we going to do this? Let’s see. It’s doing it. And it’s doing it quite well. Oh, bugger. There we go. Thick sand. That’s cool. Speaking of range. Interesting. Okay. That’s a seat. No, that’s the seat off. This way. That’s the seat and you swing it that way. And there’s your two batteries. So if need be, you could get a spare set of batteries. Yeah. And then just interchange them. From what I understand. Yeah. So batteries just hook out with those. They plug off with these plugs over here, which are the same as um your charging plug. So your charging port is just close the bonnet or the fuel tank if you like. If you want to come around that way, Don, I’ll show you where the charging port is. So, you’ll see I went through the water and it didn’t shock me to death and it got quite deep. There your charging port down here. And there’s your charging port. All nicely rubber sealed. Quite lucky. Uh, it was um at about 20% this morning when I took it for a ride and I plugged it in and I that’s a lack of thing. We on full solar here, free electricity, free petrol for the bike. I like this idea. And they claim 4 hours uh from 20% or basically 30% sorry 20 30% uh to full charge about 4 hours and I can conquer. That’s what it took to charge it up. [Music] So, 4 hours for a full charge, but more so the batteries are removable. If budget allows, buy two packs. Leave one in charge while you ride with the other. Now, we’ve been mostly been doing off-road, and you might be forgiven for thinking that this is a dirt only motorcycle, but no, other than that, um, it’s a motorbike. It’s got everything that a motorbike, a street legal motorbike would have. Got shooters over there. You got high beam, low beam. You got indicators. Okay, listen to these indicators. Let me slow down. How cute is those indicators? My little R2-D2 motorbike here. The other thing I really like about this bike is it’s old school uh but modern uh meaning no traction control. no ABS or assisted braking or the only thing it has got in that sort of range is uh dual braking almost like a BMW GS 70% uh front and 30% rear or something like I believe and you know what it comes to stop quite nicely uh pull the back brakes the back brakes are just purely back brakes so you can do things like slide the back wheel Yeah, great motorbike. The other thing I’ve noticed, no matter the light conditions, the little digital display is super clear. Gives you all the information u how much uh charge is left in both batteries, what speed you’re doing, whether you’re in eco or sports mode. Just flick it down. We’re back into eco here. And then what your range is. So yeah, it is really um easy to read this little uh uh display. [Music] [Applause] Then there’s the cost. And it’s here that most electric vehicles become somewhat prohibitive. However, this one’s still a little steep. It’ll leave the showroom floors at 179,000 rand, a similar sort of price to a Honda NC750. However, even with its frugal nature, the NC will still require petrol, oil, coolant, and regular servicing. The Traumox will require occasional brake pads and a chain. That’s all. Now, the elephant of the room is the exhaust note, or clear lack thereof. While this is a bummer to many, a petrol head on the other hand, it means that this machine can be ridden pretty much everywhere without being noticed. [Music] Have a look at the houses in the background of the shot. Normally, the owners will be pulling shotguns and demanding we be quiet, but they don’t even know we are there. [Music] You can even sneak up on somebody or not wake up the dead. Riding in quiet is far better than not riding at all. That’s actually a great little machine to ride. [Music]
