I'll bash right in and say it again--where are the cruiser style bikes like the Yamaha Raider, Suzuki Boulevard, Honda Fury, HD low riders, etc, etc. The most popular bike style in the world is completely being avoided by EVERY gas and EV manufacturer the world over.

true that about the cruisers, but I really like this design, very hard to make pretty but the team achieved it, congratulations to everybody involved!

I'm not much for electric bikes, but I like it. I think electric makes more sense for road bikes than it does dirt bikes. Road bikes are much more suited to all the extra weight of batteries, etc. Dirt machines need to be light as possible. And more likely to end up in deep water and short something out.

I would like to see what an experienced design team could come up with. Dual wound smaller lighter motors would add some interesting aspects to it's handling.
Excellent work for a university design team so far.

Maybe they should have had a couple of experienced long distance bikers on the team! From my experience, the frame members are too spindly and will break within a very short time with real road use. Add to that a week or two of real wet weather road crap, and this machine will swiftly become a wreck. Heavy motors within a wheel will make steering sluggish and the un-sprung weight will be a problem. As an exercise in putting together ideas, it probably provided some useful learning experience. Maybe the team should be made to ride this machine, for say 5000 miles on non-autoroute roads, ie 500 miles a day, five days a week, inside a two week time limit, they'd probably learn a lot more, about cruiser motorcycle design requirements, probably through their rear ends.

The EV cruiser is coming.... :) http://www.evokemotorcycles.com/project-kruzer

It seems to me that one of these 'electrical engineers' would think of putting a generator in the front hub to recharge the battery while the rear hub motor is driving the bike, instead of relying on inefficient regenerative braking. Or am I missing something?

I hope they can get a decent front hub motor worked out. Very useful on a dirt bike. I'd assume it should be good for a road bike in crap weather too? A Magnax or similar should be light enough.

Cruisers the most popular bike style in the world? not even close my friend..
As for this monstrosity im guessing comfort wasn't on the list.

@Lamar - I think you're missing the second law of thermodynamics, which would imply that the front "generator" will succeed only in reducing the efficiency of the rear "driving" motor for a net loss of power.