The blogosphere is lighting up tonight with reports that KTM will deliver a lithium ion powered bike within two years. It’s rumored that the Austrian government is giving financial support to KTM. The Zero Emissions Motorcycle is said to weigh around 200 pounds and recharge in under an hour. KTM is keeping some numbers under wraps but it’s said the batteries last 40 minutes “under race conditions”.

Sources: MCN, Wired, Hell for Leather

Eagle eyed reader Don pointed out that Electric Motorsport has a new model. The fully electric GPR-S weighs 285 pounds and is lithium powered. Electric Motorsport say you’ll get 35 miles if you ride like a hooligan and up to 60 if you ride like my mom. Top speed is in the 60 to 70 mph range depending on how you gear it.

The bike comes with an on board charger but an optional external charger can fill ‘er up in an hour and a half.

The first 100 Electric GPR-S motorcycles will be numbered special edition units with extra graphics and accessories.

Price for the GPR-S with lithium batteries is $8,000 usd.

Brammo, the Ashland, Ore. based developer of the Enertia, has raised $10,000,000 that will allow it to go into production and deliver the lightweight GPS-equipped, web-enabled electric bike that gets 35-45 miles per charge.

The first set of bikes will cost around $15,000 each when they become available later this year, with subsequent iterations to be priced at a slightly more affordable $12,000. About 100,000 people have already expressed interest in purchasing the bike through Brammo’s website.

Source: VentureBeat.com

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Kalamazoo Valley Community College and National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium will be having their biennial event dedicated to promoting cleaner choices in transportation on October 4, 2008. This years event will be at KVCC’s Texas Township campus.

Geo-thermal, solar, and wind energy and will be on display . It is being held the same day as the Solar Home Tour.

The last event, held in 2006, saw a great Electric Motorcyle turnout. We got more press coverage than pretty much any of the other displays.

Hope to see you there!

Honda Motor Co. and Yamaha Motor Co. will begin selling electric motorcycles as soon as 2010, Nikkei English News reported, without citing anyone.

The motorcycles, which will be powered by lithium-ion batteries and sold to both businesses and to individual drivers, will range in price from 200,000 to 400,000 yen ($1,900 to $3,700), the news service reported. Yamaha plans to debut its electric bikes by 2010, while Honda will introduce its version in 2011, Nikkei said.

According to Green Car Congress, the Honda will get around 30 miles range and the Yamaha should see around 60 miles per charge.

Both machines should perform about equal to a 50cc gas powered machine. So think, moped rather than motorcycle.

Source: Bloomberg.