Roam Air: Low-Cost Electric Bike Revealed

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The Roam Air gets 56 miles on a charge, goes 56 mph, and is priced at $1,500, ideal for its intended Kenyan market. (Roam/)

Back in June we brought you the first pictures of a new low-cost electric motorcycle to be built by Kenyan-Swedish venture Roam (formerly known as Opibus), thanks to registered designs filed with authorities in the European Union. Now it’s been launched as the Roam Air with styling that exactly matches those images.

It’s a bike that prioritizes simplicity and low cost above all else. The Roam Air is aimed at customers who want to get from A to B reliably and cheaply, not quickly or in luxury. But the idea has already attracted vast investment, even a deal with Uber to set up a two-wheeled ride-sharing service in Africa, earning Roam a spot on Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential companies of 2022.

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The second battery, as shown here, will reportedly double the range and add another $550 to the Air’s price. (Roam/)

The final styling of the Roam Air isn’t going to have Italy’s top design houses quaking in their boots, but it’s a significant step forward from Roam’s initial prototypes. Those looked like they’d been made using a set-square and flat sheets of steel welded together to create a wedge-shaped “tank” section resembling a model of a Tesla Cybertruck; it promised to slice into your inner thighs if you hit the brakes too hard. Or might if those brakes were something a bit more substantial than cable-operated drums, used in pursuit of simplicity and low cost. The batteries look like filing cabinets, complete with handles to pull them out; what initially looks like a slot for labels are actually digital readouts for each battery’s charge status.

But while it’s easy to take potshots at the Roam’s ultrasimple components and basic design, not to mention paintwork that looks brushed on, all that falls to the side in light of the fact that this machine is being sold for just $1,500.

Utilitarian or utopian? In regions where two-wheeled workhorses are the norm, the Roam Air aims to be both. (Roam/)

You’d struggle to find a power-assisted bicycle at that level. But here’s a motorcycle, complete with suspension, a 56 mph top speed it can hit in only five seconds from a standing start, and a 3.24kWh battery pack that claims to take it 56 miles on a charge. Splash out an extra $550 and you get a second battery, slotting above the first, that doubles the range. It also offers four riding modes, Eco, Standard, Power, and Sports, plus the ability to go backward at walking pace to make parking easier. Plug into a 240V socket, the standard in nations where the bike’s initially being sold, and the 600W charger fills the battery in four hours. It also works on 110V, but charge times will inevitably be slower. In Kenya, where the bike’s made, it’s claimed that Roam Air costs just 8 cents to cover 10 kilometers (6 miles), compared to 25 cents for a fossil-fueled bike with comparable performance.

The first examples of the Roam Air are due to be delivered in Kenya before the end of this year; mass production is scheduled for 2023, initially targeting the rest of Africa but with a promise of global deliveries “soon.” The company is operating a direct-sales model at the moment, but is looking for distributors in other countries as well as assembly and manufacturing partners to set up local production in new markets.

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