16 September/October 2023 | E-Mobility Engineering The CTO at Verge Motorcycles tells Rory Jackson why rider comfort is more important than aesthetics in its hubless direct-drive e-bike Easy rider The riding experience is important in consumer EVs, especially electric motorbikes. Persuading veteran riders to go electric is far more than a matter of mitigating range anxiety, as the bikes are ridden for recreation as much as commuting, if not more. Engineering for factors such as control response, weight distribution, and rider comfort is therefore of even higher priority for two-wheeled EVs than their four-wheeled cousins. At Verge Motorcycles, CTO Marko Lehtimaki oversees the development of technologies in the Finnish company’s motorbikes. This has led to the distinctive hubless rear-wheel-drive Verge TS and its three variants – the TS itself, the TS Pro and the TS Ultra. Despite the bike’s iconic appearance though, he and his company have given function top priority. Function has long been a focus for Lehtimaki, having started software programming during his schooling in Seinajoki, a city with a particularly strong culture of entrepreneurialism. That culture played a major part in him founding and leading a number of companies in subsequent decades, centred largely on software development and related aspects of IT. He cannot disclose the project where he first worked on an EV, but principally it involved working on HMI systems and related software for some major brands in electric automotive while serving as CEO of his company AppGyver. His introduction to the EV world was therefore via the driver experience route, something he has carried over to Verge. Motor and motorcycle Although Lehtimaki only became CTO in February earlier this year, he has been involved with Verge in an unofficial capacity since 2018, when his brother Tuomo and Ville Piippo (now chief product manager) founded the company. “The original concept for the motor’s design came from a couple of engineers and designers, including Ville and my brother, who’d built and tinkered with hot rods and other cars for years,” he says. “Through this culture of building and trying new things, despite not knowing if they’d work, they tried to solve a key challenge with electric motorcycles. “That challenge was that e-motorbikes were designed largely using the centuryold architecture of IC-engined bikes: they’d swap the engine for an electric motor, a battery pack where the gas tank used to be, and the controls and power transmission stayed as before. “But when you put a 100 kg battery 60-70 cm from the bottom, you destroy the rider’s experience because the centre of gravity [CoG] is way too high. Even reviewers who want to believe in the electric transition can’t come away from such bikes with a good feeling about them.” Anticipating that the kinds of hubwheel motors used in e-scooters could never provide motorcycle-levels of horsepower, the team explored alternative and all-new designs, until they conceived the hubless electric rim motor and iterated it towards creating a working prototype. “After founding the company, many industry experts told us the idea was doomed. Even university professors at the top of their fields in magnetics told us it wasn’t feasible, but still we pushed on, trying different materials, and although the motor didn’t hugely change its outward appearance throughout its iterations, the inner architecture and components were reengineered repeatedly for 4 years. “So it might sound like I’m embellishing, but when reviewers started testing the bikes, comments honestly changed from the negative to ‘Why doesn’t everyone do this?’” These reactions stem from a number of benefits of the motor’s design. An obvious one is the bike’s extremely high torque, its maximum figure ranging from 700 to 1200 Nm, depending on the model. Also, by removing all the transmission components, the battery pack can be placed at the bottom of the frame. With pack and motor both at the bottom, the CoG is lowered considerably, making it much easier Finland-based Verge Motorcycles has drawn widespread attention for the iconic look of its bikes and their hubless, direct-drive electric motors (Images courtesy of Verge)
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