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Why would SILICON CHIP want to review a motorbike? Aaahh, this is no ordinary motorbike! As far as we know, the Vectrix Electric Motor Scooter is the first fully-battery-powered, road-registered production vehicle of any description on sale to the public in Australia. That is reason enough in itself. And with all the talk about saving energy, CO2 emissions and carbon footprints, we gladly accepted the offer of a week’s hands-on trial. 
Vectrix aren't an organisation to hide their light under a bushell. You can’t fail to see that the bike is electric-powered, even if you can't hear it!
We were interested in the Vectrix on two levels – first, how the electric bike compared to its petrol-powered equivalents, ie, how successful was the transition from traditional power to electric power and second (and more importantly to us as a technology magazine) the inner workings of the bike. What had Vectrix done where many others had tried but failed? Being the only holder of a motorcycle rider’s licence around here, yours truly was elected to evaluate it. One difficulty, being based on Sydney’s northern beaches, was that it had to be picked up from the western suburbs. Not being a regular motorbike rider in city traffic, I wasn’t at all confident about mixing it with 50km+ of Sydney roads and freeways. So I fronted the distributor’s factory with a large box trailer, loaded up the very heavy Vectrix (a very close fit!), ti ed it on securely and brought it back to the relative safety of the back streets of Brookvale. I’ll have more to say on the street tests shortly. Suffice to say that I also co-opted the services of some experienced (ie, every day) riders to share their opinions and experiences. Just to re-emphasise: the Vectrix is a fully legal, road-registerable, battery-powered bike. As such, it requires that the rider have both a motor cycle rider’s licence and motor cycle helmet to use on Australian roads.
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