Again, broadly speaking, over 30mph is a motorcycle, under 30mph is a moped (unless it's an ebike with pedal assist, but only in some states). It's complicated.

You used to see a lot of scooters (step-through motorcycles or mopeds) in California college towns but ebikes have decimated that market.

But colloquially, if it’s a step-through, it’s called a scooter. Most of which have a CVT transmission, where most motorcycles have a 6-speed manual (toe shift) transmission.

But I was talking about motorcycles. There are some new brands like Zero and some old ones like Harley (the "live wire" disaster). They need a fire lit to make real bikes at real prices.

Motorcycles are also interesting because they're at most 1.5-2x as efficient as cars, especially on the highway (poor aerodynamics). They're small so people assume they're gas-sippers, but at 80mph a sportsbike is not giving you much more than 45mpg. A typical bike carries 3-ish gallons for an effective range of 150 miles. To give an ev motorcycle a comparable range, you're looking at close to 20kwh of battery. In China a kwh of NMC battery is said to be $120-ish, so you're looking at $2k in just battery, excluding drive unit, inverter/charger, thermal management. Conversely a motorcycle engine and transmission is typically a single unit, all bathed in the same oil and amortized over huge production runs, for a simple 80hp drivetrain, I wouldn't be surprised if the marginal cost of production is $2k for the whole thing.

I feel like there's kind of a cycle of unsafety with motorcycles on the social level in the U.S.

There's a societal understanding in the U.S. that motorcycles are unsafe, which results in an increased number of people purchasing motorcycles with the intention of showing off how unsafe (dangerous) they can be. And the cycle perpetuates.

Obviously, motorcycles are inherently less safe in certain ways, like your body is going to fly if you get into a high-speed collision, and that's pretty much unavoidable. But when I visit European countries, it seems motorcycle culture is _so_ much healthier. They are mostly seen as simple transportation tools, a far cry from what I regularly see in the U.S.

Yes, exactly [0].

[0] https://zeromotorcycles.com/

Even for small stuff, a minibike with a 212cc 4-stroke can have comparable performance to something like a Cake or Surron and is a fraction of the cost.

Personally I think the electric motorcycle market should try and max performance versus weight. Perhaps something pedal assisted that could hit 60 mph without too much fuss but light enough that it could be shouldered up a few flights of stairs. Range can be low, as in 10-15 miles per charge max but balanced by swappable battery packs.

Many countries with gig economies where the individual can't afford to own the actual method of transport, a rental market pops up to enable people to be able fulfill orders.

This usually does mean they're the first ones to get squeezed. But lesser known who gets squeezed is the rental operator/provider as well. Because many times they don't own their own fleet. They can't charge higher prices like normal car rentals and own the fleet because the individual gig driver is very price sensitive.

It doesn't take too many vehicle losses to really upset the delicate math.

It's just rentals all the way down.