The central city of Qom has been selected as the ideal location for production of electric motorcycles for the first time in Iran.
Director of the Iranian Standards Association in Qom Province, Mohammad Farzaneh, said electric motorcycle parts have gone through the various stages, including inspection, sampling and production line tests, Mehr News Agency reported.
The official said 20 separate standards have been met for commencing the production process of electric mobikes in the city.
The standards for electric bikes differ from those of gasoline-powered motorbikes and the criteria must be met for battery technology and power-train for the electric bikes. The normal tests for fuel consumption vehicles obviously do not apply for electric-powered transport.
Electric motorbikes have the advantage of being pollution-free as well as contributing less to noise pollution, which is one of the biggest complaints against regular motorbikes.
If people are concerned about the quality of electric motorbikes and whether they meet the standards, they can SMS the official hotline number to check the vehicular quality.
Electric Bikes Rolling
In early June, students at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT) said the electric motorbikes they were producing are undergoing commercialization, and would be ready for production in the coming months.
“Designing and building an electric motorbike was first proposed in March 2015 under a comprehensive National Master Plan on Technology,” Mohammad Sarikhani, assistant professor at AUT, told Mehr News Agency at the time.
The AUT team took part in the fifth round of a national competition for designing electric motorbikes and vehicles, which was held by a research center affiliated to Sharif University of Technology in December 2015. AUT’s project took the third spot.
“The motorbike runs with an electric motor and is 100% environment-friendly. Moreover, it is almost noiseless,” he said.
There are nearly 1.5 million motorcycles plying the streets of Tehran alone. It is estimated that these motorbikes produce 120 million tons of pollutants in the city annually. Each motorbike is said to produce eight times as much pollutants as a vehicle with Euro 2 standard.
The electric bike produces 10 decibels of noise, which is eight times less than gasoline motorbikes.
The bike is ideal for city use as it can run for nearly two hours after being charged for 30 to 45 minutes.
Studies show that 47% of motorcycle owners in Iran use mobikes to commute from home to work, 29% use motorcycles as a means of earning a livelihood, while the rest use it in their leisure time.
A gasoline motorbike with an 180cc engine costs 60 million rials ($1,700) while the electric mobikes will cost about 85 million rials ($2,400).
