The Zerotracer: No Smoke, Just Fire

If the BP ocean spill and heart attacks have taught us, it’s that we really should ditch oil. Alas, we can’t because we’re in love with the idea of guzzling oil.

Faster than you can smack your lips and say “wow, that IS fast!”, here comes the Oerlikon Solar Zerotracer to teach us the art of a grease-free life. Let’s talk about the fact that the Swiss-designed tandem motorcycle with a Kevlar outer shell looks positively Tron-ish. The Zerotracer operates off a 400-volt lithium ion battery pack that can be fully-charged in two hours, and can ride at 80 percent capacity after a quickie 30-minute charge.

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Normal electric bikes are, of course, sacrificing a lot of speed for the sake of Mother Earth. But not this zero carbon-emitting cheetah. Paraded at the recent Zero Race, an 80-day around-the-world romp to promote alternatives to fuel-propelled vehicles, the Zerotracer had every tongue wagging with its top speed of 250km/h and 0-100 km/h performance numbers of less than 4.5 seconds. That puts it in about the same league as a Porsche 911, a flabber-gasting surprise akin to finding out your mom was the secondary school prom queen.

The Swiss team have big plans for the Zerotracer, planning to release one for a retail price of between Rs 3,533,564 and Rs 4,711,419. Ridding the world of our unhealthy crutches ain’t cheap, haven’t your heard? We’re still cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, and we’ll flatten you with a Prius before we give up our cha kuay teow. We don’t know what’s bad until it hurts.

From the April 2011 issue of FHM India.