Taiwan's Graft EV has announced a tough-looking electric dirt squirter that weighs little more than an ebike but makes 20 times as much power. The EO.12 looks like a Sur-Ron on steroids, and should be an absolute barrel of monkeys on a tight trail.
There's a tasty little niche developing in between ebikes and electric motorcycles, populated with ultra-lightweight electrics way too overpowered to pass unmolested down a bicycle lane. Sur-Ron had a terrific hit with its 110-lb (49-kg), 6-kW (8-hp) Light Bee back around 2018 – less than half the weight of a 250cc two-stroke – and a ludicrous US$3,450 price point, it was an incredibly easy little machine to love.
The EO.12, in its Factory Team edition, weighs the same as the Sur-Ron, but offers a nudge over four times the power, at 25 kW, or 33.5 hp. It's a much sturdier-looking build, with a CNC-machined billet aluminum frame and swingarm, and large, slim 21 x 1.6 inch spoked carbon rims.
Suspension front and rear comes from French company BOS, which makes quality gear, by reputation, provided your area has good access to parts. The 42-mm inverted fork and rear monoshock are both three-way adjustable, with hydraulic bump stops, and offer 220 mm (8.6 in) and 230 mm (9 in) of travel, respectively. TRP calipers on Galfer 246-mm discs take care of braking.
The quick-change batteries are split into Endurance and Race types, depending on your priorities. The Endurance packs in 2.7 kWh, while the Race manages just 1.3 kWh and drops a little weight in return. Both batteries also fit in Graft's ATV and UTV vehicles as well, in case you've got a shedful of this brand.
Where Graft diverges most palpably from Sur-Ron is at the price tag. The Factory Team EO.12 costs a pretty penny at $9,000 – and you'll need an extra $2,600 for an endurance battery, or $1,200 for a race battery. Put those together and you're getting up into rarified air; you might want to take a look at what $12,900 can get you in the barnstorming 60-kW (80-hp), 110-kg (242-lb), 6-kWh Stark Varg, also known as the world's fastest electric dirtbike. Although we don't advise you make direct eye contact with that thing, it looks hungry.
There's a cheaper base model Graft bike starting at $6,500, which weighs a little more at 58 kg (127 lb), and makes a tad less power at 18 kW (24 hp). It uses a cheaper RST Killah fork and RPM GII rebound-adjustable shock, and has aluminum rims instead of the carbon jobbies.
So light you can lift them in and out of the truck bed, the Graft bikes look like a stack of low-maintenance, near-silent and relatively environment-friendly fun, if flinging soil skyward can be considered environmentally-friendly. Check out a video below.
Source: Graft EV
