I Bought the Cheapest Hybrid Motorcycle EVER gas/electric
This right here is the first hybrid gasoline electric motorcycle to be sold in America. I didn’t even know that they made hybrid motorcycles. Did you? No, you’re lying. Nobody knew. But once I learned that they existed, I knew that I had to buy one because the world’s fastest vehicles are hybrids. No. No. No. Not that type of hybrid. This type of hybrid. Fast cars. Fast cars. So, we’re going to see if the Kawasaki Hybrid is as amazing as I hope it is. Kawasaki is going to hate me for telling you the story, but when I tell you what I paid for it, it’s going to blow your mind away. All right, so before I tell you the story of how I got a bike that has an MSRP of 125 for pennies on the nickels on, okay, 35 cents on the dollar. Let me fill you guys in on the plan. One, I’m going to learn everything I can about this motorcycle. Not by reading, not cuz I’m some bookworm nerd, but by doing cuz I’m a man. And then we’re going to take some of the claims that Kawasaki is making about this thing. Like they say that this little thing, this little two, I don’t know how big it is. I don’t know anything about it. They say this thing can accelerate as fast as a leader bike, which there’s no possible way. But that’s a claim that they make. We’re going to put all their crazy claims to the test. All right. So, I’m pretty confident that nobody ever bought any of these motorcycles. actually on on a on cycle cycle trader listing tools. I searched for all of them in the country. There’s still like 275 still for sale in the country. And this is not a like they don’t sell that many motorcycles, you know? I mean, there’s only like a,000 Kawasaki dealerships in the in in the country. So, here’s what happened. This is pretty this is pretty nuts. I love buying stuff, especially from dealerships. It’s a lot of fun. Initial MSRP was $12,500 on these on these bikes. I’m looking, a lot of these dealerships are listing these things for 8,900 bucks. So, some are still at the 125 number. I’m looking nationwide. Some have dropped down a couple hundred bucks, but a bunch of them are at like 8,900 bucks. So, okay, it’s getting cheaper. This is good news. Then I start calling the dealerships up. I know full well that no one’s buying this bike. No one’s interested. No one’s talking about it. No one cares about it. And they’re not getting any love. dealerships hate new old stock. It makes them look bad. It, you know, they’re they’re it’s money that they’re wasting sitting on the floor. So, then we saw another dealership. They had it listed for, I think, 5,500 bucks. And this was a big dealership in Arkansas, and they understand the game. They’re trying to get rid of this thing. Let’s get rid of this thing. It’s not picking up. It’s not hot. Let’s get it gone. So, I call them up and I’m like, “Hey, listen. I know you have fees and prep and all this stuff.” 5,700 bucks out the door. Would you take 5,700 bucks out the door? And he’s like, “Let me call you back.” He calls me back. He’s like, “I’ll do 5,700 bucks out the door.” We went and picked it up. Got it for that cheap. And that is how I got this bike for almost more than half, like 60% off of MSRP. So, you notice it kind of has a um there’s definitely some H2 H2 lines going on with the the not complete belly pan, how it comes out like this. I’ve not ridden this bike. It’s kind of the first time I’m actually looking at it. Apparently, it’s a twin. It’s a 451 cubic cm parallel twin. I don’t know that I recall seeing that engine in any other motorcycle before. Now, when you look at the bike, all right, it’s Ninja. HV clearly stands for Oh, look. It’s damaged. Oh, no. That’s why I got it for so cheap. Look, it’s got a scratch on it. Where my shippers did this. Who was Scott right there? Scott, you put a scratch on my bike. So, HEV most likely stands for Hub Elizabeth Valentine. Um, you look at the bike, it’s actually a pretty big bike. Like, size-wise, it’s the physical size of, you know, a 600, even probably close to a liter bike. Although, you come back here, it does not have big giant tires on it. It’s got 160s, so closer to what you’d see on a uh like a Ninja 400. I think I think a Ninja 400 takes slightly slightly smaller tires. Also, this one’s dead. It’s always dead. It’s got that big giant battery. How do I get this seat off? There we go. Check this out. Get my M1 Moto detailing spray. Wipe this thing down real quick. Available at bucksgeear.com. So, this looks like the battery. This is a little crappy battery that’s dead. That’s barely holding a charge right here. Right here. these big giant huge fat wires going to it. This looks like the battery that’s aiding the bike. And we’ll we’ll figure out how that works and all that it does later. Is that clear? Look, that’s a clear panel. Very interesting. Why is this panel clear? Unless there’d be lights in there. This is dope. Look. Look. I’m I’m back here. Snoop around back here. Look at this. I pull this little lever. It hinges up. Look underneath there. Foam pad. Little tool kit like this. Why? Why does this little crummy tool kit? It doesn’t nothing says Kawasaki on it. Raido. Who is Rao? Sometimes a manufacturer like this, they’ll have another company make it. Who is Rao? Chongqing radio holding group company. It’s Chinese and they make gasoline, diesel engines, generators, outdoor equipment, vehicle parts, and motorcycles and ATVs. It’s possible. All they did was made that one tool right there. As of right now, this thing’s still made in Japan. All right. So, the first thing I wanted to know when I when I got this was, is it a is it a plugin? Where do you plug it in at? No, it’s not a plugin. It’s like it’s like it is it’s like the exotic hybrids or the the Prius. There’s no there’s no plug in. It’s some It just charges itself up. I don’t know how. There’s another thing. And this may be this may ruin the whole bike. Look what’s missing. There’s no shifter. Did they make an automatic hybrid? No clutch. No shifter. Oh, finger shift. Yeah. Like it says there’s AT and MT modes. What symbol is that? That’s interesting. Saying the battery is E. All right, it’s dead. Yeah, we got to jump it. Also, before we jump it, check it out. E boost. So unlike Formula 1 cars and exotic hybrids, they have a boost button that you press gives you an extra boost of horsepower through the electric motor, which is which is the most inefficient way to use an electric motor, but it’s still pretty awesome. The big question on my mind is what really is this thing? Before we get to that, can it do an electric burnout? Let’s find that out right now. How do I get it to do electric stuff? I don’t know what that did. What did that do? Oh, that’s the gear shifter. [Music] I can’t get it to do an electric burnout cuz I think the the batteries are completely drained. We got to drive it to boost those batteries up. Can it do a gasoline powered burnout? [Music] Look at that. Oh, did it stop me? [Music] This is how all those videos start when the guy runs into the wall. This is how that video starts. [Music] Traction control is kicking in. It doesn’t like it. [Music] Well, it doesn’t seem to like it. I don’t see an option for modes and for taking off traction control. That’s kind of another negative. If I had a clutch, I could just rev it up and dump the clutch. But if traction control was still, if I couldn’t take it off, then it’s still not going to want to do a burnout. I don’t like no shifter. It’s weird. And it’s push button shifting. I will say it it goes it goes into gear pretty quick, but with the driver’s aids kind of kicking in, I can’t even put it into second gear when it stopped. So, the engine in this bike is not a new engine. Well, it kind of is a new engine. It’s a new engine, but not just for this motorcycle. It’s the same engine that they put in the Ninja 500, also the Z500, also the Eliminator. It’s a 451 cubic cm engine. Why is it 451 and not just 450? I don’t know. And why is it 451? They’re rounding up entirely up to 500. It’s a pretty big roundup to me. They should just call it 450, but you know, who cares? That’s what that’s what they’re calling it. In the Ninja 500, it’s around 51 horsepower. In this bike, they’re claiming it’s 59 horsepower. And with the eBoost, they’re saying that you can bump it up another 10 horsepower, taking it to 69 horsepower, which we will be testing on the dyno later today. I can’t wait to see what this thing what it’s actually pushing out because maybe it’s pushing out some big power. Maybe it’s maybe this pushing that out. Who knows? Now, you might be thinking with those horsepower numbers, you’re like, “Man, that’s pretty impressive. That’s even more power in the Ninja 400 RR.” And don’t get confused. The 400R is actually a higher performance motorcycle than the 500. I know it’s kind of confusing, but the same way the 600cc inline four cylinders are a higher performance level than the 650s. It’s not just about cc’s. So, you might be thinking that this bike is super fast. Also, it’s got the power boost making it even faster. That would be the logical conclusion until you put it on a scale. What are you seeing? Settling in the low 490s. So, I love working on my motorcycles. heavier than the 400, which that’s a lot of weight. That’s like putting a whole passenger on the back. And that brings me to a another problem. You have this big giant battery in here. I love it and it’s a great idea. It’s a 48V battery. This motorcycle does not start with a normal conventional starter. It uses that mo electric motor and the battery. That’s how it starts it. Now you have pretty much a a motorcycle with a giant humongous battery and a humongous motor that can never fail. No need for battery tenders, no need for replacing your battery every couple years, no need for jump starting your bike, none of that stuff, right? Well, you’re wrong. All the controls and all the modules are still run off the 12vt battery. So even if that 12volt battery, that dumb little battery is dead and you have a full charge on everything else, it’s still not going to start. And since you have no manual gearbox, you cannot pop start it. Why can’t they just run a converter to take 20 uh 48 volt down to 12 volt and run all the systems and eliminate the need for that battery? It would also reduce the weight like 5 lb. So think about it. Maybe there’s a reason. Probably not. Who cares? So you’re thinking like, “Oh, that’s not a huge problem.” Well, this is a 2024 brand new bike. We just bought it. Our little tiny battery is already dead. We’ve been putting it on the tender every couple days because it either it’s draining the battery, which I doubt it, but it could be. It’s either draining the battery or we just have a bad battery, which which went bad after a year and a half, which which kind of sucks, but it’s not Kawasaki’s fault. I don’t blame Kawasaki. I mean, I got the bike for so cheap. I’m not going to go back to the dealership and tell them to get me a new battery. So, the other thing about this thing, you know, you kind of step back and you look at it, you get a a good look at this thing and you’re like, “Wow, that thing is very long.” Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. I know what you’re trying to say. Don’t say it. It’s extremely long. And that’s when I did a little research on this thing. We We’ll put the numbers on the screen. This wheelbase is bigger than the 400’s. It’s also bigger than the 500’s, but there’s no possible way that it’d be bigger than the Ninja, the Ninja 1000’s 57.1 in wheelbase, right? Well, it is. Kawasaki was asked about this. They were like, “Why does it need such a long wheelbase?” And their answer was it needs a long wheelbase to handle the additional torque. Now, why is it more than 2 in longer than the H2R and the Kawasaki ZX-14? Both of which have over well over 100 footbs of torque. And the ZX-14 is the second longest motorcycle ever produced. Why on earth is this a longer wheelbase than those two motorcycles? The real reason uh the wheelbase is so long, and when I say so long, it’s about 7 in longer. It’s probably about this wheel should be here, which is so crazy, but it’s about 7 in longer than what you would expect it to be. And the reason I think it was was cuz they needed more space for the battery. Although there’s plenty of space in here, but they needed more space to put that big giant battery, which kind of kind of comes down right here. Could they have made Could they have manipulated that battery to be uh longer and thinner and skinnier? Yeah, they they could have. It didn’t have to be a square battery. It could have been a you know, it could have been something different. They could have figured out another way. They could have been two batteries at different spots. I don’t know. But that that’s why I think they that’s why it’s so long. There’s no ergonomic reason for it to be longer than the ZX-14. no reason at all. So, let’s get this bike out of the shop and onto the street and take it for a spin to see if we can get this battery to charge up and to see what this bike is really like. If it’s as awful or as amazing as we all hope it is. First note, I’m not able to change the eco because eco uses the battery cuz my battery is dead. Although, there’s this one which I think is the battery. That’s fuel. That’s the fuel. I don’t know what that HV one is up there. It also has no problems shifting on its own. Well, it downshifts. So, let’s see if it upshifts. Apparently, it will never upshift unless somehow I’m not on the right mode. So, something I never understood was why couldn’t it be a plug-in and a hybrid? Cuz time’s like this. I wish I could have plugged it in, let it sit at the house for a couple days, charges up all my stuff, and gives me full battery. Now, I got no I got no battery, so I don’t know how I got to charge it up. But, let’s see what the highway does. So unlike a all EV bike, it’s not going to charge while you’re driving. It’s going to charge when you’re decelerating and the engine and the bike’s still moving. This should in theory be charging up while I’m driving. However, I see no indication of that. All right, so what’s going now is we’re just trying to drive it to try to get the battery to charge up so we can actually use that power boost. This thing has too many aids on it. I can’t shift while I’m in the throttle. I can upshift while in the throttle, but I can’t downshift. I think it’s working now. Um cuz it stopped flashing. The battery light was flashing before and now it’s solid and it’s actually giving me the option for eBoost. So, after maybe like 20 minutes of driving, it’s almost starting to barely charge from completely dead. So, we are seeing signs of life. Look, look, check it out. It’s showing the Eboo sign. That means we can do eBoost. I’m not going to use it yet, but I want to keep on uh I want to keep on seeing if I get this thing to charge up and see how long it takes to get it to somewhere close to half maybe. Oh, I got another bar. These bars are going up. So then we decided to put it into eco mode. See if we can get that battery to charge up even more. And pretty quickly we got a whole another bar. We’re pretty much halfway there. So this is pretty awesome. When you stop, doesn’t matter what gear it’s in. You start cruising. It’s all electric. And then bam, it turns on the motor. All right. So, now that we got the battery charged up, it that did unlock more cool features that this thing can do. So, before it was just a regular 500 Ninja, now it’s actually a hybrid bike and now we can do some hybrid bike stuff. Here’s the thing. Uh, the internal combustion engine, ICE, has been around for a long time, but also so has the electric motor. They both have pros. They both have cons. Which is why it always confused me when you hear people talking and it’s always electric versus gas. This versus that. This one’s better. This one’s better. Obviously, gasoline’s better. I almost never think that compromise is a good idea. Compromise is pretty much now both people lose. I want red, you want blue. Let’s put them together. That makes another color. Now that’s compromise. That’s that’s no one won in that situation. In terms of connecting gasoline powered engines and electric, you actually do get the best of both worlds with pretty much none of the negatives. Let me explain. Let’s look at in terms of efficiency. What is each power plant good at? you know, the the internal combustion engine is very efficient at highway speeds, cruising at a certain, you know, a certain RPMs, just maintaining that, which is why your your large your your Chevy truck or your or your pickup truck can get like 25 miles to the gallon on the highway, but soon you get back into the city and stop and go, it’s getting like seven. It’s doing awful. On the opposite side, the electric motor has the exact opposite poss. So, uh, stop and go, it’s amazing, but then just cruising on the highway, it’s very inefficient. Let me give you a better example to simplify a little bit more. Bananas are awesome, but have a downside. Peanut butter is awesome, but also has a negative side. Put them together, all awesome. So, when you combine them together, you actually do get the best of both worlds, which is why I I thought I’ve always loved the idea and I’ve always wondered why they never made a hybrid motorcycle until now. I don’t know what they were waiting for, but I do think this is a great idea. Now, whether this is the best interpretation of it, that’s uh yet to be determined. I mean, it’s it’s not new. Uh Formula 1 cars have been hybrids for a pretty long time. Hypercars are all hybrids. The new ZR1X is a hybrid. So, it’s a gasoline powered with a with an assistance of electric to give to put it over the edge. I mean, it makes sense. Now that we unlocked some of the um hybrid features, let’s go try them out. Oh, and if you guys were wondering, you’re I tell you what, I don’t feel like a ferry driving a hybrid vehicle because it’s not full electric. I don’t know what a ferry feels like, but ain’t no one calling me Tinkerbell. I’m not sure how to start it in eco mode. It’s telling me to push a button. I’m pushing the button now. I’m going to put it in eco mode. All right, let’s do this. Oh, it’s actually doing gas and electric at the same time. I felt it. So, it’s kind of annoying at any type of reasonable RPMs, your tachometer is just flashing at you. But it’s also pretty awesome that I started this thing. I might end this trip with more range than when I started it. Because if you think about it, the battery power is free. It’s 100% free. The engine’s already moving. You don’t feel any parasitic drain off the engine to charge the batteries. And then the batteries help give you more range. They should have called this the Kawasaki Ninja parasite. Eboost. [Music] That’s pretty awesome. So, Eboost only lasts for this amount of time. Press it. Right. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi, seven Mississippi. That’s as long as Eboost will last. And I’ll admit it was not pulling my arms off. Well, I need to combine eBoost with actually accelerating. Let me try that. Eoost. All right. All right. That’s not bad. That was a nice bit of boost. Let’s try one more time. Let’s do 60 to 70 without one. That’s without. Okay, that’s without eBoost. Let’s try with eBoost. Go faster. Now, don’t get me wrong. This is no leader bike. I don’t know what they’re talking about. We’re still going to test this thing out and compare it to a liter bike. But that is pretty cool, though. That is pretty cool. So, when you’re putting this on your insurance, how big is your motorcycle? They’re like 450 cc’s. They’re like, bam, cheap. So, the eBoost is real. I’ve se There’s been some motorcycles that have had some gimmicky boost. Oh, press this button, it’ll make it go a little bit faster. This is real. This actually feels something. And I kind of it almost feels like a little bit more than 10 horsepower, but we’re going to figure that on the dyno later today. So, this motorcycle has some features that no other motorcycle I’ve ever had has. First of all, they’re calling it a strong hybrid. And they’re kind of making their own their own category with that cuz I’ve never heard that phrase before. It’s kind of pointless. You don’t have to call it a strong hybrid. Just make a hybrid motorcycle and then after it say 200 horsepower. I think people are going to get the they’re going to get the they’re going to figure it out. And in a second, we’re actually going to see how strong this thing really is. But first, let me show you some of this tech. The first bit of tech is the app. Now, a lot of motorcycles have apps right now. It’s called Rideology the app. That’s the name of the app. That’d be like naming this motorcycle Kawasaki Ninja the motorcycle. And I honestly I couldn’t even figure out how to use it. Forget you stupid app. Also, this thing has a walking mode. Check this out. Walk mode. All right. You put it in gear. forward reverse. This is maybe if you’re on a big hill, you know what I mean? Or if you have to do one of these or if you’re short. But but here’s the thing. It makes sense. Why wouldn’t you do this? You already have the electric motor. It already has the capabilities. That was easier than not than me just doing it myself. So, I think it’s pretty dope. Now, other motorcycles have had reverses and the Honda Gold Wing actually has something similar to that, but instead of using an electric motor, it uses the starter motor to push back. It’s not as smooth and simple as this, but um I do think that’s kind of a cool uh kind of a cool option. Let’s put it in full EV mode. Now, I hate this, but this is possible. And some cities have talked about this of banning internal combustion engines in their cities. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but let’s say it does happen. You want to go on a motorcycle ride. You want to ride through that city. Actually, I don’t know why you would want to ride through that city. Just avoid that city at all cost. So, before it was doing all hybrid stuff. Now, it’s on the full EV option. As far as I can tell, full EV option is only automatic. But at at full EV mode and it shifts itself, the bike will do 40 miles an hour and it’ll do around 20 I think 22 um miles on that range. Let’s see how it feels. That ain’t bad. I mean, it’s not like super super fast, but it’s also not uh not crazy slow. Now, what would be cool is if they could do that and you can run full EV full EV mode. Uh it’s a top speed was a little bit faster and then you could run the engine as a generator at the most efficient point of the engine to charge up the battery. Christini, I think, makes a quad that does that exact thing. Now, there’s another thing, but you have to be in a hybrid mode, and it’s ALPF, automatic launch position finder. That sounds complicated. You feel like it’s like I’m like, what does that mean? I looked it up. What that means is if that if that mode is on, it will automatically downshift the bike into whatever gear you want it to be in. So, so when you stop, it always ends up being in first. Let me show you what it does when you put it in that mode in a super high gear. It’s actually kind of cool. All right, so if I’m cruising around and I put the bike in a high gear and then I come back in and I put it on that mode, it just it’ll automatically shift down all the gears. So, when you’re riding it, it’ll automatically downshift for you. And when you take that off, you have to downshift yourself. Now, it does still seem like they are trying to dial in and get some of the bugs out. There was a recall on all of these. Every single one of them got recalled because they were jumping out of between first and second gear. They were jumping out of gear. I’ve heard some stories of people and they were jumping out in higher gears. I’ve not had any problems with mine. I’m assuming mine’s been recalled. It’s been fixed since I have it. Um, if not, they’re going to send me a notification in the mail pretty soon. But the big question on my mind is what’s this thing going to do on the dyno? And that power boost that when you press I figured out when you press it it it it gives you about even though it’s seven Mississippi it’s actually 5 seconds 5 seconds of boost. How much power does that actually give you? Let’s go find out. All right. So we’re here at the dyno. Let’s see if this thing makes as much power as they say it does. Also, I think that when the boost kicks in, it’s a more than the 10 horsepower. But let’s put it to the test. So, when I first fired this thing up, it said I had 50 mi to go. It now says I got 36 miles to go. We just got done doing 50 miles. It’s efficient. It’s pretty awesome if you care about that stuff, which I don’t. Not at all. All right, so here’s the plan. We’re at the dyno with our buddy Ben. We took it apart a little bit. We got to get a wire plugged in onto the uh like on the coil pack to measure the RPMs. Once we can measure RPMs, we can get this thing rolling. Throw in the comments what do you think it’s going to do. I think they’re they’re claiming the horsepower being a little higher than what it is, but I think they’re claiming the boost being lower than what it is. Yeah. Got it. Yeah, pretty good. [Applause] [Music] 1 127 top speed. So on regular mode, all motor without boost, we got a max power of 51.14 horsepower and max torque at 30. Let’s see what it does with eBoost. [Applause] [Music] And there it is. With all engine, it was 51 horsepower. With all engine plus max boost, 61.8, almost 11 horsepower gain and 7 foot-lbs of torque on top of it. That’s actually pretty impressive. Exactly what I thought was going to happen. Edit out what I really thought was going to happen. Put that put put that new stuff back in there. How’s it going, guys? See you. Now, that’s a good looking motorcycle right there. All right, so now we know how much power it makes. Let’s put their claim to the test and see if this is actually can accelerate as fast as a leader bike. Come on, turn on. Turn on. You’re making me look dumb in front of my friends. Oh, I got to be in neutral. Here we go. There we go. All right. Now, let’s Now, let’s go do that thing. [Music] All right. So, Kawasaki claims that this thing can accelerate as fast as a liter bike. That’s a pretty big claim considering a liter bike weighs less and is not quite but almost three times as much horsepower. Like the average liter bike is over 170 horsepower. So, how are they possibly making that claim with a 451cc motorcycle? And the answer is I don’t know, but let’s compare it. And the bike we’re going to compare it with is this is actually a cheat for the Kawasaki cuz this bike is kind of old, but it’s still pretty quick. This is my Honda Blackbird. Let’s see which one accelerates faster in 0 to 60. [Applause] [Music] That’s pretty quick. Let’s see if that uh hybrid can beat it. [Music] See [Music] heat. [Music] We’re going to have to go back and put this on uh throw on the computer and see what the numbers are. But this is way closer than I thought it was going to be. This thing’s pretty quick. So, before I tell you the 0 to 60 times of did 0 to 60 in 4.43 seconds. So about a second slower. So what I’m saying is Kawasaki lied to us. Well, hold on. Not exactly. So what Kawasaki was leaning on was the fact that the one weak spot of the leader bike, and that is launching. They’re not that fast launching. Their wheelbase is too short. They have too much traction. They have too much power. If they launch with all their power, the thing is going to loop over and just and just flip. Even at 60 mph, the bike these bikes could flip if you get it full throttle, depending what bike it is. But Kawasaki never said that it was faster in 0 to 60. They just said it accelerated faster. So when I saw the 0 to 30 times, I couldn’t believe it. All right. So what’s the 0 to 30 for the uh for the Honda 205? Okay, not bad. Let’s see what’s the hybrid. Now, I’m sure some of you guys noticed that on the wall, the only thing on the wall says, “Do not forget the Bible verse.” Well, we forgot the Bible verse, but no, [Music] 18?
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