Tesla Of Motorcycles? Startup Damon Motors Reveals First Electric Motorcycle

Tesla just won the top safety honor from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in September for its Model 3, strengthening the case for its safety systems. Damon Motorcycles, on the other hand, is up for a similar challenge -- but with a two-wheeler.

The Canadian startup that initially planned on outfitting motorcycles of other manufacturers with its safety solution but reoriented itself to become an electric vehicle (EV) maker offered a sneak peek to its first e-moto, which was only a prototype back in June.

On Tuesday, Damon Motorcycles unveiled the Hypersport Pro, a fully electric motorcycle equipped with what Damon calls as AWSM or Advance Warning System for Motorcycles. The AWSM makes use of sensors, cameras, radars that offers the rider a 360-degree view of the environment.

Aside from this, the safety system is also capable of alerting the rider of any possible danger through lights or haptic feed from the handlebars. The data gathered from the vehicle is sent to Damon's central computers for analysis and to update the rest of its vehicles for different road scenarios.

Damon was founded out of CEO Jay Giraud's love for motorcycles and his desire to make moto riding safer. The two-year-old company received its CAD 2.5 million (US $1.9 million) seed funding earlier this year and is taking on a mission to address a problem in a way that no other company has done before, according to Giraud.

"We are for the first time being black and white about the fact that we are a full-on producer and we have a motorcycle we're going to unveil at CES," Giraud told TechCrunch.

"We're trying to change the industry by addressing the issues of safety and handling and comfort and the problems that have persisted with everyone in the industry, including all the e-moto companies today," Giraud added.

Another page out of Tesla's playbook that Damon took is the selling model, which will rely heavily on direct sales as opposed to seeking out dealers. The Hypersport is set to fully unleash in January 2020, and Giraud expects to sell 500 units a year.