- The Luna is the first street-legal electric motorcycle from Brooklyn-based startup Tarform.
- It boasts a 0-to-60 time of less than four seconds, a top speed of 95 mph, and a 120-mile range, the company says.
- Plus, it features sustainable materials like flax-seed weave for the body panels and vegan leather for the seat.
- The Tarform Luna starts at $24,000 and is available to preorder now, with the company saying deliveries will start next year.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
By now, environmentally conscious consumers can pick from a fairly broad range of electric cars – from tiny city cars, to medium-sized hatchbacks, to full-blown luxury SUVs. The market for battery-powered two-wheelers isn’t nearly as active, but interesting new e-motorcycles do hit the streets from time to time.
Take Tarform, for example. The Brooklyn-based startup recently unveiled its first street-legal production motorcycle – a sleek, retro-styled number called the Luna that seeks to combine old-school looks with modern tech and efficiency.
In the pursuit of environmental sustainability, Tarform not only shunned the internal combustion engine, but it also embraced materials like vegan leather for the seat and recycled aluminum for other components. And, rather than junk your bike after a few years, Tarform would like you to simply swap in new components – that’s why it made the battery and body panels upgradeable.
Keep scrolling to take a closer look the $24,000 Tarform Luna, which the company said is available to preorder and will be in customers’ hands at some point next year.
There's a new electric-motorcycle maker on the block making retro-inspired, eco-friendly rides.
First making headlines in 2018, Brooklyn-based Tarform recently announced its first production bike, the Luna.
The bike combines old-school design with advanced technology and environmentally conscious materials.
Tarform's founder and lead designer, Taras Kravtchouk, wanted to pay homage to classic British bikes while "creating a new breed of intelligent machines powered by clean energy and made with respect to nature."
When it comes to performance, the Luna boasts a 10-kWh battery pack paired with a 55-horsepower electric motor.
That combination, Tarform says, sends the Luna to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds ...
... on its way to a top speed of 95 mph.
The bike claims a 120-mile range in the city, and Tarform says that riders can charge the bike from zero to 80% in 50 minutes.
Plus, like lots of electric vehicles, the Luna benefits from regenerative braking.
The bike also boasts interesting tech like a radar-based system that vibrates the seat when a vehicle enters the rider's blind spot.
Tarform also equipped the bike with a rear-facing camera and the ability to receive software updates.
To make its electric motorcycles even more sustainable, Tarform constructed the Luna's bodywork from woven flax seed ...
... and its seat from biodegradable vegan leather.
Tarform builds most components on the bike from aluminum, since it's "100 percent recyclable."
Tarform says that "vehicles should be built for upgradability and not obsolescence," so it made the battery pack and body panels swappable.
That way, riders can modify their bike as technology advances and tastes change.
The Tarform Luna starts at $24,000, which is fairly steep but not quite as pricey as Harley Davidson's nearly $30,000 Livewire.
For comparison, Zero, one of the more established companies building electric motorcycles, offers a sport bike for around $11,000, but Tarform is aiming for a more upscale part of the market.
Tarform says it will begin production of the Luna soon, starting with the limited-run 2020 Founder Edition.
Deliveries are set to start in 2021.
