Sam is an American in New Zealand who likes electric motorcycles—hence, his YouTube channel name NewZeroland. He also likes Taco Bell. Unfortunately for Sam, there is only one Taco Bell in New Zealand, in Auckland, over 400 miles away from Wellington where he lives. He figured that if Ewan and Charley could ride electric motorcycles all the way up South America, he could ride his Energica Ego up the north island of New Zealand for Taco Bell.
Of course, despite Sam's allusions to Long Way Up and his absolutely terrible rendition of the theme song, these are two rather different situations. Not only is Sam going hundreds of miles rather than thousands, but New Zealand also has a far more robust electric vehicle charging infrastructure than South America. Range anxiety is the biggest issue with electric motorcycles and Long Way Up showcased that. NewZeroland is here to show us there's really nothing to worry about.
The video speaks for itself as far as what the experience of taking a long road trip on an electric bike is like. Sam had a much better time than Sabrina's experience road tripping a Zero. As you might expect from his channel name, Sam also has a Zero. He says this trip was much slower on his Zero and was also more difficult. The Ego is not designed to be a long-distance tourer, but when forced into that role it does all right.
A Powerful Statement:
At the end of the video, Sam gives us some numbers for his trip. It took 12 hours to make the 441-mile journey. Two and a half of those hours were spent charging the bike. Across nine charging stops, he spent $30.45 USD. Aside from the extra time charging took over a traditional splash 'n' dash, how much did this trip cost compared to a gas-powered motorcycle?
Let's take a Yamaha MT-09, a similar bike with comparable performance to the Energica Ego. (I've ridden and enjoyed both myself.) It averages 49 miles per gallon and would use nine gallons of dead dinosaurs on this same trip. At the time of writing, the average price of regular gas in the US is $2.11. The trip would have cost $18.99 in gas, significantly less than the electricity he used, not to mention far less refueling time.
However, Sam is not in the US, but in New Zealand, where gas currently costs $5.66 in Freedom Dollars. Multiplied by nine gallons, the trip would cost $50.94, over $20 more than its electric counterpart. Considering that you sacrifice none of the enjoyable riding experience, this is a compelling argument in favor of electric bikes. When the purchase price comes down, I expect to see sales explode in parts of the world that pay much more than we do for gas.
Source: NewZeroland on YouTube