Category: EV

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License Plate Renewal Breakdown

I don’t mind paying my fair share to help with infrastructure, etc., but as an EV owner and now an electric motorcycle owner I was surprised to see similar fees applied to my Metacycle that are applied to my electric car.

The two concerning vehicle weight I can understand for an EV since I pay the same fee for my truck (F150) as I do for my EV car. However, my little motorcycle seems like it should not fit that criteria since it’s the size of a 500cc motorcycle and weights half what my 1000cc Honda Africa Twin weighs.

Just weird/odd, not complaining. I fully support taxation when it makes sense…schools, helping the needy get back on their feet, public transportation, infrastructure, etc.. Not these endless wars we have been either participating in directly or the many proxy wars we have going on.

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Metacycle Update – April 2023

The Metacycle continues to put a smile on my face. Over the past two days I’ve ridden it around on errands and just for fun with today’s ride being around 2 hours. The Corbin seat is very comfortable and makes riding so much better.

Today I rode to breakfast at “Hidden Bagel” on South Hill here in Spokane, then headed northwest for about 30-40 minutes. Speeds ranged from 30mph to over 60mph

I should have fully charged the bike after my rides yesterday, but didn’t so I had a little range anxiety today, but got home with miles to spare.

The new mirrors were easy to install and look so much better than the stock mirrors. I do lose a little visibility directly behind me, but it’s the blind spots where I’m mostly concerned and they cover that.

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So far so good with the Metacycle

With us experiencing more days of winter than spring rides have been few and far between. I have been out on the Metacycle five times so far with the longest ride being around 20 miles.

I had only charged the motorcycle once after delivery to see how many rides I could go on before I needed a change.

I’ve run errands a few times with distances between 3 and 12 miles and if I add up the mileage total so far it would be around 55-60 miles. I suppose I could go look at the total distance, but that would mean walking to the garage and I don’t feel like doing that right now. 🙂

Anyway… the stock seat is superbly uncomfortable so I ordered a new one from Corbin and it’s amazingly good!

New Corbin seat on the left in comparison to the stock on the right.
The new seat is a little taller, but not enough to matter.

The last ride I went on was about 20 miles and the seat was so comfortable! On the old seat I would begin to feel uncomfortable a few miles in.

I got the Metacycle up to 68mph so far and that was going up a slight incline. I truly love the silence while riding this machine, it makes everything around me seem closer and not separated by engine/exhaust noise.

A great place to stop for a picture.

The bike is now down to 3 bars so I would suspect running errands would be fine, but I may charge it up again in case I feel like going on a longer ride around town.

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Metacycle has finally arrived!

After almost two years of waiting, the call came in from the shipper to schedule a delivery day and time. I was giddy with excitement and was not quite sure what to expect of this electric motorcycle

Unloading my Metacycle from the truck.

Of course I took it for a quick ride and was immediately impressed with its silence and quick acceleration. It’s certainly no sport bike, but it gets going quickly enough.

Photo opportunity along High Drive

It’s now charged up, but the weather turned a bit cold so it’s now parked next to my 2017 Honda Africa Twin.

Parked next to its big brother and ready for some warmer weather!

I’m so happy that this long saga has ended and this bike is here.

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Metacycle might actually arrive in the next month.

Late last week I received an email asking me if I’d be available for Metacycle delivery! WHAT? Could this actually be happening?

I logged in and clicked “YES” immediately. We shall see when I get a call and when it’ll be delivered, but it’s a good feeling to get this notification.

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Supermassive color of Metacycle shipping?

A recent photo on the Sondors Metacycle portal shows the black (or supermassive) version being assembled for delivery so what does that mean to us folks who ordered one? Not much I’m sure, there have been no shipping updates and my questions to Sondors get met with a form letter. Only 2,000 to ship and they can’t seem to communicate effectively to their customers. Becoming more and more disappointed in their rollout.

I understand the delays caused by the pandemic, shipping, chips, etc., but when you don’t communicate often enough people start to imagine the bad, not the good. There are many people who just troll the company (and likely don’t even have an order in), but there are also many of us who have an order, are in the first round, and just want more information on where OUR Metacycle is within the production and delivery lifecycle.

A photo from the Sondors Metacycle portal showing bikes ready to ship.

I’ve written twice to try and get some sort of status and the same auto response from “Rigo”. The first one seemed legitimate, but when you get the exact same content on the second request you know they are not applying themselves to fully supporting this product or their customers. I feel like this was a bad way to spend almost $6K. Oh well.

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Update on the Metacycle – Delivering

Bit of excitement today when I checked the progress of my Metacycle order.

Check out the message:

Pretty exciting for all of us who have been waiting for a very long time to get our Metacycle.

I still haven’t received a phone call or email about scheduling a delivery, but hopefully that will be coming “soon”. Soon is a very fluid term with this process and I hope that the Metacycle is at least a usable in-town transportation method. Would be a shame to have waited this long and realize that my hard earned money went into something poorly constructed.

Must maintain a positive attitude… 🙂

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The Metacycle ship-tease continues

Pictures of the bikes and of trucks backed up leaving the port of Los Angeles have not made things better for those of us who are waiting on our fully paid (bike & white glove delivery) Metacycles.

It’s going on years now and Sondors’ communication to us first 2,000 should be better than this. If there are specific problems we should know about them so at least we know that things are either stuck for this reason or moving slowly for that reason.

I also called their phone line and their text support hearing two different stories. That did not help my concerns.

The new site: https://sondorsx.com/pages/portal-go shows a few bikes all spread out, but that’s certainly no where near the 2,000 us early adopters have ordered.

We’ll see how it goes, but even though I was told by Sondors support it would be here “definitely before winter”, I’m starting to doubt that claim.

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Waiting on an EV…and trying to decide which one

I’ve been wanting to go away from internal combustion vehicles as much as possible and with my Sondors Metacycle arriving in June(ish) I’m heading in the right direction. It’s an in/around town motorcycle so I’ll be keeping the Africa Twin for longer rides, but for for those times where a quick run to the store or an appointment the use of an ICE vehicle won’t be necessary.

Back in late 2021 I ordered the Ford Lightning, but am likely pushed out to 2023 to finally order and receive. There are two other vehicles I’ve put pre-orders on are the CANOO and the APTERA and have also been considering the Tesla model Y.

The reason I want the Ford Lightning is its ability to be a power source for my home during power outages. With the number of windstorms/big trees/power lines above ground it’s something that happens here in Spokane a couple times a year. Most are only a few hours, but this winter the power was out for a few hours and I was about ready to startup my Champion generator to get some heat going, but then it turned on again. Hooray.

All of the vehicles (including Tesla) are out to 2023 at this point and all but the Tesla are unproven although Ford certainly has the infrastructure behind it to be successful.

My current vehicle is wonderful so I “can” wait, but it’ll sure be nice when I get the Lightning.