Orange County Choppers builds electric motorcycle, breaks the law

It looks like Siemens paid the Teutuls to build an electric chopper in order to promote the company's Smart Grid charging technology. Flagrantly violating New York's laws by failing to wear a helmet during his demo ride in an open-to-traffic Columbus Circle this morning, Paul Teutul Sr. described the experience as, "Awesome." In an apparently unnoticed ironic twist, it appears that the nearly-silent chopper isn't just quieter than a typical Orange County Chopper, it's also faster. The official top speed is listed as 100mph.
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"We wanted to build this unique chopper to raise environmental awareness and reflect what the 69,000 employees of Siemens USA are doing to help America stay on the cutting edge of tomorrow's green economy," said Daryl Dulaney, President & CEO of Siemens Building Technologies. The Siemens Smart Grid Charger is able to communicate with the electrical grid, then charge batteries when demand for electricity is low and therefore cheap.

In keeping with the Eco-friendly theme, the knuckle draggers at OCC used water based paint and an unspecified amount of "recycled materials" in the bike's construction.

"Building an electric bike from recycled materials was something new for us, but we definitely enjoyed the challenge and think that the end product makes a great addition to our wide range of unique motorcycles," a PR flack wrote for Teutul Sr, going on to pretend that he said, "While electric bikes probably won't surpass traditional ones for the foreseeable future, we also think that energy efficient technologies are increasingly important for both manufacturers and consumers."

The chopper will appear an in episode of the inexplicably popular American Chopper on TLC before being auctioned off to benefit charity. Check out our Electric Motorcycles tag page for plenty of stories on much cooler green technology.

via Christian Science Monitor