Three years after his first attempt at a high-performance electric motorcycle faltered, Michael Uhlarik is back and has launched his latest bike, Suru.

Costing $3,499 , the Suru is priced for the urban consumer and is designed to be a high-performance, environmentally friendly vehicle that can allow city dwellers the ease and affordability to make local trips at a reasonable cost.

Manufactured in Amherst and Sydney, the Suru frame is lightweight and strong, and is covered by a lifetime guarantee. Most important, it requires no tooling (meaning the components can be made without special molds), which cuts costs. Uhlarik said the Suru bikes have a high margin, even if production is only 100 units. Above that figure, the company will be doing well, he said.

The market for electric bikes has been booming in the U.S. and Canada lately, rising about 15 per cent annually. But Uhlarik said the market is polarized between expensive designer models from Europe and cheap products that are unreliable. Suru is targeting the middle market, with a sleek design, strong frame and affordable price.

“We’ve launched,” said Uhlarik, sitting in a coffee shop with his daughters Sophie and Robin, whose initials are combined to give the product its name. “Suru is in the market and on sale.”

Uhlarik first tried to produce an electric bike in 2013 with Amarok. It gained attention when the Amarok P1A bike reached speeds of 100 miles per hour going up a gradient of 17 degrees at the 91st Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado. It was faster than competing bikes from larger companies that had cost $30 million to develop.

Uhlarik was preparing for a commercial launch of the product, but it never happened and the company sank. Uhlarik describes it as a “gutting” experience, and he spent a long time recovering. He went back to teaching and focusing on his daughters.

But the explosion of electric bike sales kept reminding him of the potential of electric bikes, so he and cofounder Kevin O’Neil decided to try again.

“Amarok was a really big success from a technical point of view and a failure from a business point of view,” he said. “There’s just not a market for this type of high-end motorcycle in this niche. … But the frame of the Suru would not have been possible without Amarok and it’s the frame that makes it special.”

Uhlarik and O’Neil have now soft-launched Suru, and will have an official launch next month at the Interior Design Show in Toronto. Though it’s not true “interior” design, the bike is one of the new products to be featured at the show because it is an innovative product that enhances the urban lifestyle.

One point he stressed is that a lot of similar products are financed through crowdfunding campaigns, in which people are asked to provide money in advance to fund the development of a product. By contrast, Suru is developed and can be delivered to customers within 90 days.

“We’re not asking people to fund our research and development,” he said. “We’re there now.”