High Level Trade Studies

I am doing some trade studies on various different approaches and thought some of it would be worth passing on to someone that might be tackling a similar project.

Keeping the Tank?

Why keep the tank on an electric motorcycle? On a bullet bike at least I have three arguments for keeping the tank:

1. Cosmetic- The big muscular looking tank adds to the tough look of a bullet bike. Take it off and in my opinion, it looks kind of dorky.
2. Storage- It makes a great weather protection and storage area for electronics if you cut the bottom out of it as I did.
3. In my case, it formed part of the mounting for the seat.

Exoskeleton

In my opinion, a bike with an exoskeleton is much better to work with for electric since you can stack lots of batteries in the center of the chassis as it gets rid of the obnoxious center tube that runs from forks to seat. The late 80's and 90's bullet bikes are great because they have the exoskeleton and many are aluminum. Mine is really pretty light once liberated from the 4 banger motor. I can easily lift the rolling chassis (before adding motor and batteries). I am hoping to keep the total weight to about 400 lbs. If it is approximately 150 now and I add 200 in batteries and 40 for motor, 10-20 for controller and misc. It should still be pretty close to 400 which is lighter that the stock 467 lbs.