A Brooklyn-based electric motorcycle startup has just announced itself, with a focus on mixing old-school craftsmanship with a simple electric powertrain and an interesting AI-enhanced spin on rider assistance.
The brainchild of designer Taras Kravtchouk, Tarform threw a party in Brooklyn to celebrate the launch of its first two models – a flat-bar scrambler and a tightly designed café racer. Both bikes are electric, but the company has given out no details on power, range, torque or battery specs, so we've got little to go on at this stage.
What we do know is that they look terrific, echoing many other modern retro designs we've seen recently, with twin shock rear suspension, single seat units and a conspicuous lack of fenders or mirrors that'll likely not survive the journey to production. The creators describe the design approach as "nothing but the essentials."
Signature design elements include CNC-machined handlebars, what looks like large cooling fans either side of the motor, round LED headlights and tidy LED tails. Indicators are built into the bar ends in a nice touch that's also going to be difficult to wrangle into meeting the highway code.
There's also a nicely bezeled circular high-resolution dash, which allows Tarform to display rider assist information in a novel way. Cameras around the bike feed in through an AI-enhanced system that watches what's happening in traffic and warns the rider of risks, functioning like a basic radar screen to replace the mirrors.
While that's the extent of the detail that's available to this point, Tarform has opened up pre-orders and announced pricing: US$28,000 for a "Founders Edition" unit to be delivered in 2019, and $18,000 for a "production vehicle" – production of which will begin in late 2019 if all goes according to plan.
Check out a short video from the company below.
Source: Tarform
