Every 12 months, sheep farmer Ian Kelly worries about his lambs dying to miscarriage and mismothering. Checking the flock daily on a loud petrol bike was not serving to.
So this 12 months he purchased an electric bike for his farm in Kendenup, close to Western Australia’s south coast.
Compared to a four-stroke petrol engine its motor is virtually silent.
“It’s important not to frighten the sheep while they’re lambing,” he stated.
“Without the petrol bike buzzing away the sheep react very differently.
“There’s no gears or chains or sprockets [on the electric bike] so I can trip it one-handed. It’s quiet and it is mild.”
Record petrol prices did not even cross Mr Kelly’s mind when he chose to pay a 30-per-cent premium for the electric bike.
Prime lambs raised on his farm sell for hundreds of dollars, so the value of saving even one of them from miscarriage each year was worth far more to him than the petrol.
Range anxiousness on the vary
Like electric cars, the first question most people ask about electric motorcycles is about the range of the batteries.
“Virtually each buyer will ask me how lengthy the battery goes to final,” Perth farm machinery dealer Gary Johnson said.
It has been a major obstacle to the uptake of electric motorcycles for road use.
While electric automobiles can carry huge 100kWh batteries, the scale and weight of a bike makes long-distance using at freeway pace impractical.
But for day-to-day jobs on the farm it is not a problem.
Mr Kelly opted for a relatively small 2.1kWh battery for his bike, giving him about 40 kilometres of range at low speed.
“The battery know-how has reached the purpose the place it is fairly workable for a bike,” he said.
“I do possibly 15 kilometres on it a day.”
In June 2020, Justin Hoad of Uralla Veterinary Clinic wrote a report for Meat and Livestock Australia on electric motorcycles’ viability for livestock farmers and graziers.
Since then, Mr Hoad said electric motorcycle batteries had improved significantly.
‘It’s like energy instruments’
Mr Hoad said the key question for many farmers was whether electric motorcycles could replace quad bikes.
“There have been over 240 quad bike-related deaths in Australia and over 600 hospitalised accidents on common per 12 months.
The value of quad bike and side-by-side automobiles when it comes to deaths and accidents in Australia is estimated to be $200 million yearly,” the report stated.
In October last year, major manufacturers including Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha stopped selling quad bikes in Australia after rollover protection was made mandatory.
“Farmers are actually on the lookout for options to exchange quad bikes, that are not being introduced into the nation,” farm machinery dealer Gary Johnson said.
“The curiosity in [electric] bikes appears to be rising massively in the previous few months.”
“It’s like energy instruments. You hardly see a corded energy instrument anymore,” Mr Kelly stated.