How to Register an Electric Dirt Bike for Road Use - Getting on the Road Fast

Electric vehicles have been on our radar for many years, including electric dirt bikes. In the science fiction realm, the late Michael Crichton deployed an entirely electric fleet of vehicles, including a dirt bike, in his follow-up to Jurassic Park, The Lost World (circa 1995). The reason? They are intriguing; they have excellent torque, and they create no noise. But, of course, that was science fiction, and in 1995 battery technology was just not where it is today! But he could see the future, perhaps when others could not.

Finally, technology has caught up with his ideas, and we now see a growing pack of all-electric dirt bikes on the market with excellent performance and remarkable endurance. The beauty of battery and electric motor technology is that they will only improve from here.

Let’s look at the situation from the top down: how we got here, where electric dirt bikes are going, and how registering an electric dirt bike for road use differs from a gas-powered bike.

Why Go Electric?

The prominent electric dirt bikes (KTM Freeride, Alta Redshift, Stark Varg) are only off-road. Of course, this is not to say that these companies will not make street-legal variants down the road, and the big manufacturers (Honda, Yamaha, Husqvarna, etc.) are almost certainly working on their electric dirt bike models concepts. But for now, these are not dual-purpose bikes; they are strictly for trails and motocross. 

Electric dirt bikes are capitalizing on all of the things that are making electric cars so popular: incredible acceleration, excellent torque curve, and of course, no smog and no noise pollution. These are trendy selling points for our readers and riders in California especially.

Origins of Electric Dirt Bikes

We all can see the writing on the wall surrounding gas-powered engines: their days are numbered. Whether or not this is prudent is another matter altogether, but they are slowly on their way out as the primary means of powering personal vehicles. 

How far does the electric motorcycle lineage go back? Well, it might date back to 1895 in Canton, Ohio, when patent number 552,271 was approved for an electric bicycle. Considering the origins of the gas-powered motorcycle were bicycles with internal combustion engines, then we can safely consider the electric bicycle as the electric motorcycle’s ancestry, meaning the concept itself is well over a hundred years old. 

Drawbacks of Gas Bikes

Gas bikes have a lot going for them, and they get better and better with each generation. First, a four-stroke bike is quite efficient compared with a car. But they are still inefficient compared to an electric bike. There’s more. 

If you want a high power-to-weight ratio in a gas dirt bike, you are ostensibly going to choose a two-stroke bike. Two-stroke engines afford nearly instant throttle response and a broad powerband, but they are also filthy and loud. Sorry, those are the facts. 

Four-stroke engines are smoother, cleaner, and much quieter but are a lot heavier to the tune of fifty percent! Accordingly, the price of cleaner burn and increased fuel efficiency is sluggish performance and high weight. 

What if there was a way to get any power and throttle response you want and select where you want your bike to be on the torque curve? 

The Performance Advantage of Electric Motorcycles 

Electric dirt bikes are on track to outperform gas-powered dirt bikes, a feat that will become utterly mainstream as batteries and electric motors continue to get lighter and the longevity of battery charges continues to increase.

One significant advantage of electric dirt bikes is that you don’t have gears to worry about anymore. Just twist and go. 

We are not saying electric dirt bikes should replace internal combustion or anything, but as enthusiasts, we know noise pollution is a real thing, a natural safety hazard. However, there are a lot of natural advantages to driving a silent dirt bike. For one, it opens up where you can ride. California? Eat your heart out.  

Scalable Performance 

A selectable and scalable powerband of electric bikes is a significant design appeal. Stark is no stranger to this concept; it is a conceptual cornerstone of the VARG design. 

How is the electric powertrain design an improvement over gas? For one thing, you can control the output of the VARG from their in-house app. In addition, the app creates over one hundred different ride modes, custom tuning power curves, engine braking (yet another advantage of electric motorcycle technology), custom traction control, and even the ability to create custom flywheel weights virtually. Unreal. 

Stark is just one example of this. They just happen to be the only company employing this technology right now to the best of our knowledge, but others will surely follow.

Economy

I love using California to illustrate my points; it is the gift that keeps on giving. In California, the average gas price is around $4.65 per gallon. So it is going to cost you almost ten bucks to fill the tank on your 250cc trail bike, whereas the KTM FREERIDE E-XC will cost about $3.24 to charge ($0.18 per kWh).

So it isn’t exactly free to charge your bike, but it is cheaper and will continue to be cheaper as technology extends the range of these bikes. 

High Torque Values

It doesn’t matter what motorsport you are into; torque is everything. A bike with high-end power is excellent on the straightaways, but a dog on takeoff. Torque is king on the trails and especially on the jumps. 

Electric motors are torque monsters that peak immediately, which is excellent for this application; you need monster torque to pop monster wheelies. Do you want monster air? You need massive torque.   

What Is The Difference Between an E-Bike and an Electric Dirt Bike?

E-bikes are electric bicycles in the eyes of the law, even some that don’t have pedals. Electric dirt bikes, on the other hand, are all dirt bikes. Therefore, they are in the same performance brackets as comparable gas bikes. For example, the KTM Freeride 18kW dirt bike equals about 24 horsepower, whereas an e-bike runs around one or two horsepower depending on the category.

E-bikes have exploded in popularity in recent years, and for a good reason. They are an economical way to get around, and a few promise to be absolute beasts on the trail. But at their core, many e-bikes remain technically bicycles with electrical propulsion attached. And this is by design because they are bicycles with an electric power pack. The original goal was to make an electric assist for lightweight bicycle frames. 
Since this is the way they are built and designed, e-bikes fall under a different regulatory structure than motorcycles. E-bikes have low top-end speeds, which puts them squarely in the camp of a bicycle or moped instead of a motorcycle (depending on the state being registered). They are more or less an outlier still, with every state having different views on the validity of an e-bike as a motor vehicle.

Electric dirt bikes are no different categorically from a standard gas dirt bike, so not only will the state not categorize them as e-bikes or mopeds, the registration process will differ from registering a dirt bike.

What Advantage Is There in Registering an Electric Dirt Bike?

There are plenty of good reasons to register your electric dirt bike is street legal or to consider registering one if you are still in the process of buying one. First, they are fast. In fact, in an urban commute, they might be just about the most fun thing you can ride with their twist-and-go throttle and lack of gears. 

Electric dirt bikes will continue to be particularly attractive in states where emissions are a top priority, namely California. Not because gas bikes are outlawed (yet), but just for ease of ownership. 

Electric dirt bikes are flatly cheaper to operate than gas bikes in terms of cost to charge versus the cost of gas. As I said, a two-gallon fill-up runs nearly ten bucks in California. But mainly, the real selling point is to get away from the hassle of red- and green-sticker insanity. You will be free to ride anywhere you want, anytime you want, on electric bikes.

So what does this have to do with registering your electric dirt bike? Well, why not? Why not tag it? There’s no reason to let it sit around being a garage queen when you aren’t on the trails, right? 

Unless you have a long commute, there is a good chance that driving your registered and tagged electric dirt bike will save you a bundle of cash in operating costs. 

What Are the Disadvantages of Registering Your Electric Dirt Bike?

The only real disadvantage to driving a tagged electric dirt bike is going to be in the form of the somewhat limited range, although batteries have improved so much that this is becoming less of an issue. 

While it is true that the current inventory of electric dirt bikes is strictly trail-style bikes, there is no reason that these cannot be quickly and easily retrofitted for street-legal use.  Again, the only difference between a gas dirt bike and an electric dirt bike is in the powertrain; they are not altogether different types of vehicles (like an e-bike is). 

Beyond this, the only other detractor is that they aren’t going to make the best cross-country motorcycle in the world, but that was never the point. A dirt bike isn’t going to take the place of anyone’s Goldwing anytime soon. 

How Can I Register My Electric Dirt Bike?

This is the real meat and potatoes of this whole article: you either have taken the plunge or are thinking about buying an electric dirt bike. Again, this is a desirable option, mainly if you live in California, where an electric bike will be greeted with considerably more friendliness than a gasser. 

We already know you can register a gas-powered dirt bike fairly easily. You just need a handful of parts and a little knowledge of the DMV. But how does the process work to register an electric dirt bike?

It is apparent at first glance that the VARG and the KTM Freeride are dedicated off-road bikes, so obviously, they have to meet DOT standards first. But what beyond lights? There is no need to have a muffler or spark arrestor on the bright side! 

The Electric Dirt Bike Registration Process

Registering your electric dirt bike isn’t a big deal once you get into the process, as long as you have all of your paperwork in order. If there is a way to convert a gas-powered dirt bike to street legal in your state, most likely an electric dirt bike will not be any different to register. But in many areas there is no obvious way to do that - that’s where we come in.

If you have valid proof of ownership (title, MCO, financing, or bill of sale), we can handle the process of registering your electric dirt bike to be street legal on your behalf.

You can expect your paperwork to be in your hand with registration and a valid plate in as little as 3 weeks. Of course, the rest is up to you. You will not be required to inspect your bike when using our registration service, so you need to make sure that your bike is entirely legal in terms of lights, mirrors, and whatever else is necessary for your neck of the woods. With that said, you should need the same parts to get street legal as a regular gas-powered dirt bike.

We know that all you want to do is get your electric dirt bike legally on the road, and we are here to help you with that; it’s what we do. The process seems daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. When you partner up with Dirt Legal, you can rest assured that our team of specialists are the best at what they do, and all you need to do is sit back and relax because we’ve got the rest under control.