KTM has been in no hurry to get into electric motorbikes with only the Freeride E (pictured above) in production since 2015.
However, that could soon change with the Austrian motorcycle manufacturer combining with Indian vehicle manufacturer Bajaj Auto to develop a common 48-volt platform for electric two-wheelers.
They won’t be big road motorcycles, but scooters and mopeds with power from just 3kW to 10kW with production to begin in Pune by 2022.
In 2015, KTM decided to shelve plans to go into production with their Speed-E electric concept scooter.
Now that could be brought back with this new Baja venture.
KTM E-SPEED electric scooter
Electric motorbikes?
It is not the first joint project with Bajaj as they already produce several KTM and Husqvarna motorcycles for the world market.
KTM Industries AG holds almost 52% of KTM AG and Bajaj has the remaining holding.
KTM global product marketing manager Diego Arioli said they would not get into electric motorbikes until they had a “decent range”.
KTM E-SPEED electric scooter
Diego says if they had kicked off their EV program with big electric motorbikes, customers would expect more range.
“We don’t want to stretch the technology now but as soon as it is right for what they need we will be ready for the market,” he said.
“It also has to fit into our ‘Ready to Race’ motto.”
KTM Freeride
The Freeride is not imported to Australia and has had limited success in Europe.
There are two versions of the Freeride E, the SX racer and the road-legal XC aimed at commuters and learners.
Prices are €10,995 for the SX (about $14,100) and €11,295 for the XC (about $14,500).
The Freeride E weighs only 104kg and features both brakes on the handlebars like a bicycle as there is no clutch lever.
The company hopes those controls will be familiar to cyclists who it hopes to win over for commuting.
A Ducati-branded Chinese-made electric scooter will be imported by Perth-based company Vmoto through Urban Moto Imports, arriving in July at about $5000.
They also emphasised that the scooters were not a Ducati product, but “an electric scooter that wears Ducati’s colours, no more than that under a licensing agreement”.
However, it now appears that they will be sold here in a partnership between Urban Moto Imports and Vmoto.
The fully electric moped is based on the Super SOCO CUx model with special edition sporting Ducati livery.
$5000 ‘Ducati’
Ducati Racing will also use the Super SOCO full electric range of motorcycles and scooters as their preferred “paddock transport” throughout the 2019 MotoGP series.
Super SOCO Spokesman Andy Fenwick says the special Ducati version of the CUx moped would help “add even more credibility to the SOCO range”.
Urban Moto Imports CEO Joseph Elasmar confirms the Special Edition CUx Ducati will be available through the Super SOCO dealer network with pre-orders soon.
“We are expect pricing to be set around $5000,” he says.
Super Soco CUx
The Super Soco CUx scooter is available with four removable battery options for range of 60km to 120km from the 2700 watt maximum Bosch electric motor.
It also features a HD front camera with night vision and a G-force sensor that automatically activates the camera and sends video to a mobile phone in the event of a crash.
Other features include a high resolution dashboard, LED headlight, USB dock and smartphone connectivity that allows the rider to check the battery status.
In 2015, there was the e-Scrambler painted in Scrambler Urban Enduro colours. It was made under licence to Ducati by Italwin, an Italian company specialising in pedal-assisted electric bicycles.
In 2017, Ducati Western Europe managing director Edouard Lotthe said they were looking at both scooters and electrics, while VW Group Chairman Matthias Mueller said Ducati would have an electric motorcycle by 2020.
Ducati e-Scrambler
Ducati Zero electric concept
In the same year the Ducati Zero futuristic design concept was produced by the Milano Scuola Politecnica di Design (Design Polytechnic School).
In 2018, Ducati unveiled its first electric mountain bike, the MIG-RR.
Ducati electric mountain bikeAnd this year Ducati boss Claudio Domenicali admitted he rides a Hypermotard converted to electric power with a Zero FX powertrain and said the company is about to join the electric bike race.
“The future is electric, we’re not far from starting series production,” he said.
So there could be more electrics from Ducati soon, rather than just a licensing agreement for luxury scooters.
British car company Jaguar appears to be returning to its motorcycle roots with patents for an electric motorcycle, a hi-tech motorcycle jacket and head-up display helmet linked to the company.
However, the patent filings for some of the innovations have now been filed and assigned to Indian-owned Jaguar Land Rover which is a subsidiary of Tata Motors.
JLR’s InMotion Ventures is also a leading investor in Arc Vehicles which was founded by Mark Truman who used to run JLR Special Operations and its Whitespace skunkworks, where Arc was developed.
Does all this mean Jaguar may be making a return to motorcycles?
After all, the company started as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 making motorcycle sidecars. Many other car companies, such as BMW, also started making motorcycles.
Arc Vector
Or does it simply mean the intellectual property in the patents will be assigned to future Jaguars and Land Rovers?
If the latter is the case, you may ask what use drivers would have for the motorcycle jacket that sends haptic alerts to riders if a collision is imminent.
However, that technology could be used to send haptic alerts to drivers through the seat or steering wheel.
As for the head-up display helmet technology, that could be used on the car windscreens.
India looks set to move most of its motorcycle and scooter production and sales to electric with government incentives over the next six to eight years.
The proposal was chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been re-elected with more than 63% of the vote.
Election promises
Similarly, the recent Australian election campaign heard that the Coalition believes electric vehicles will make up 25-50% of new passenger vehicles by 2030, while Labor wanted a target of 50% and the Greens called for 100%.
Those targets are largely out of our hands as we no longer have a car industry.
Australian vehicle imports will be determined by foreign manufacturers who will probably reach those targets anyway. For example, Sweden will not be making any internal combustion vehicles by 2030.
But the electrification of India’s vehicle manufacturing industry is a far more significant move for the world.
India is one of the biggest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing 4.6 millions cars last year.
It is also the biggest motorcycle and scooter market in the world with more than 21m sales a year.
Over the past two years sales of electric scooters in India more than doubled from 54,800 to 126,000, but it’s still only a small fraction of total sales.
Indian motorcycle companies Hero Electric, Ather Energy, Emflux, Twenty Two Motors and Okinawa produce electric scooters and motorcycles.
Emflux ONE electric motorcycle
Electric incentives
Prime Minister Modi had previously said all new cars and utility vehicles manufactured in the country would be electric by 2030, but he backed down after an industry backlash.
However, with his resounding victory at the polls he is expected to wind up his electric plan, particularly for powered two- and three-wheelers.
His draft plan recommends $1.4 billion in incentives for the manufacture and sale of electric motorbikes and scooters while penalising petrol-powered bikes.
LiveWire
It will be interesting to see if Harley-Davidson, who make their Street models in India, will also receive government incentives to produce and/or sell their upcoming LiveWire in India.
We’ve seen some weird and wonderful designs in electric motorcycles, but nothing comes close to the Racer X with its big “X” design.
The uncomfortable-looking bike is the work of Mark Atkinson of Speed of the Cheese Racing custom motorcycle company in Utah, the same state that hosts the Bonneville Salt Flats speed records.
In fact, batteries can be made into almost any shape and electric motors are much smaller than an internal combustion engine, allowing designers much more flexibility with their creations.
Consequently, we’ve seen some crazy designs such as the Essence e-raw with its suspended seat and “tank”, the bug-like Johammer, the Saietta that resembles a bull and the just-wild Zec00.
Essence e-raw 04 Signature
Zec00
Johammer
Saietta R
Racer X
Mark agrees with Roland on the limitless potential for electric motorcycle design.
“Electric motorcycles are interesting to me because there are no prior restrictions,” he says.
“Tradition doesn’t really play a roll, besides it that it needs two wheels. Stylish gas tanks that play such an important style cue on the motorcycles we have looked at for a decade, are a thing of the past. What new ideas can we implement?”
Racer-X is Mark’s “clean sheet vision” of an electric motorcycle.
There is very little conventional about the Racer X.
The suspension and steering have one pivot point, so there is no conventional suspension, springs, shock absorbers, forks, triple clamps, etc.
We’re not sure of the exact mechanics of how that works as details are scant.
However, they say the steering is electric and works with a servo motor controlled by an arduino which is a computerised controller.
We can only wonder what happens to the steering and suspension if there is an electric failure!
Mark grew up near the Bonneville salt flats, so his first love is straight-line speed and turning corners doesn’t seem to be a feature of this bike.
Aluminium and carbon
The basic structure of the bike is a mixture of aluminium tubing and carbon panels.
There are also no details about the motor which was given to Mark by Bonneville Salt Flats racing colleague Dr John Sullivan of Purdue University in Indiana.
It comes from the university’s land speed bike when they upgraded their drive train.
It drives the rear hubless wheel by a conventional chain on a sprocket that runs on a shaft through the main bearing plate and passes through a hole down the middle of the bike.
“The rest is just vivid imagination,” Mark says.
His Racer X is not destined for production, but display.
If you’re in LA over the next year you can see it at the Electric Revolution exhibition in the Peterson Automotive Museum which is well worth a visit!
Mark says he hopes the bike inspires other designers to experiment with the coming wave of electric motorcycles.
Electric motorcycles may be just around the corner, but we can’t see too many people paying $US32,750 (about $A46,500) for the Essence e-raw 04 Signature that looks this uncomfortable.
When the French Essence e-raw was launched in 2015 with a wooden seat we thought it was ridiculous and our backsides ached just looking at it.
Essence e-raw 01 with wooden seat
Now they have released the Essence e-raw 04 Signature with a brushed aluminium seat.
It looks springy, but no more comfortable than the first model.
Essence of performance
Essence e-raw 04 Signature
We wonder how many they’ve sold. Must be a few if they are releasing this high-performance Signature model.
Few riders of the Signature model may have time to think about backside comfort since it rockets to 100km/h in just 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of 200km/h.
That is thanks to an electric motor that makes 152kW of power a whopping 400Nm of torque.
It’s still not the fastest electric motorcycle in the world. That honour goes to the $US38,888 Lightning LS-218 which tops 350km/h (218mph).
Lightning record-holding electric race bike
There are few other technical details available about the e-raw 04 Signature such as battery output, charging times or range.
But we suspect that if it makes that much power and your are abrupt on the throttle it will drain very quickly.
The design doesn’t seem to show a lot of room for a big battery, either.
Essence motorcycles started with a prototype built by founder Martin Hulin that “went viral”.
So they developed the e-raw 01, followed by the 02, 03 and now the 04 Signature.
It features a trellis frame, belt drive, Ohlins forks and rear monoshock and a CNC-milled aluminium swingarm.
In fact, batteries can be made into almost any shape and electric motors are much smaller than an internal combustion engine, allowing designers much more flexibility with their creations.
Consequently, we’ve seen some crazy designs such as the Essence models, plus the bug-like Johammer, the Saietta that resembles a bull and the just-wild Zec00.
Kawasaki appears to be joining Kymco in proposing a battery that can the owner can swap quickly to recharge their electric motorcycle.
The company filed a patent for an electric version of its baby Ninja in 2013, but the patent has only now been published.
In the main photo above, the battery and motor are shown to the left of the motorcycle to demonstrate how it can be pulled from the tubular frame of the machine.
That seems strange because only the battery would need to be replaced, although it would make maintenance on the motor easier.
That’s also strange as motor maintenance is not an issue with electric vehicles. They tend to be long-lasting and have low maintenance requirements.
Battery swap history
The patent varies from the Kymco plan to make only the battery replaceable.
Kymco also has battery swap vending machines.
Battery swap technology is not new. British company Battery Traction Ltd came up with the idea in 1938, but it was sidelined by World War II.
Better Place also suggested the idea in 2008 and went broke in 2013.
Better Place battery switch station in Israel
Car companies dabbled with the idea, but have largely canned it because their batteries are too big.
However, Tesla has patented a robot that can charge an electric car’s battery in 15 minutes and some small electric city cars can swap batteries in under a minute.
Standard battery swap size
While battery swap technology makes a lot of sense and would solve the problem of hours-long recharging, it would require all manufacturers to get on board with standard sized batteries.
However, Kawasaki’s patent doesn’t seem to advance the notion of a standard battery size the whole battery and motor coming out of the motorcycle in one unit.
Electric motorcycles and scooters need smaller batteries than cars, so a quick battery swap system for two-wheelers could still be likely.
Since battery technology is developing at a rapid pace, especially decreasing in size, a standardised battery size would become obsolete in just a few years.
Kymco suggest multiple small batteries would get around the battery size issue. However, their batteries are still quite big – about the size and weight of a 1990s laptop (about 5kg).
The Ionex is powered by two batteries stored under the floor pan. Each battery is good for about 30-40km.
Kymco says riders can also rent up to three extra batteries and store them in the underseat compartment, extending range to 200km.
Underseat storage
But then you lose the advantage of underseat storage for your helmet, jacket and gloves.
The Ionex can also be charged by plugging the scooter into a power outlet or plugging each battery into a portable charger you can have at home or work.
Chairman Alan Ko says they are launching 10 electric models in the next few years, establish their own charge battery-swapping networks in 20 countries and sell more half a million electric vehicles worldwide.
“With the Ionex, together we start an open movement that celebrates one of the most important social missions of our time,” he says.
Batteries run a rear hub motor
Infrastructure hurdle
There is also the problem of the expense of infrastructure to provide vending machines in enough places to make it workable.
Kymco battery vending machines
It may work in large cities, but would be impossible to get adequate con ergo in a large country such as Australia.
Kymco isn’t the first scooter company to suggest battery swap technology.
San Francisco company Scoot has about 700 electric scooters for short-term hire.
Now they are looking at moving into small cars with swappable batteries.
The big four Japanese manufacturers are believed to be working to standardise electric motorcycle batteries and charging infrastructure.
Noted electric vehicle website Electrek says Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki hope to standardise the technology to prevent any obstacles to its adoption.
No doubt it’s also hoped to avoid the Beta/VHS situation where new video recording technology went two different ways.
Standardised batteries and charging infrastructure would mean plugs on bikes and sockets on charging points would suit all electric motorcycle models.
Perhaps a standardised battery size, shape and output would also lead to a battery swap solution which would be quicker than waiting for a bike to recharge.
Slow revolution
So far Japanese motorcycle companies have been much slower to join the electric vehicle revolution than their car compatriots.
Meanwhile, Suzuki has done nothing, at least publicly.
But the fact that they are now collaborating on to standardise electric motorcycle batteries and charging means we may soon have to learn about terms such as volts, amps and kilowatt hours.
Learn electric terms
Living with petrol-powered motorcycles all our lives, we now find we will have to learn a lot of new terms.
We certainly don’t profess to know much about electrical terms.
But here is a very non-technical, idiot’s guide to the main terms. (Electricians may find this quite amusing!)
Volts: This is a measure between two points in an electrical circuit, sort of like the water pressure in pipes. The mains plug in your house has 240V (230V in UK, 110V in USA) and your motorcycle battery has 12V.
Amps: Together with the voltage, it determines the flow rate of the current. High amps with a low voltage means a lot of current flowing slowly, like a fat, lazy river. Low amps with a high voltage means a faster flow of less current, sort of like when you squeeze the end of a hose and the water spurts out.
Watts: It you multiply the volts by the amps you get the watts, which is the output power of the electric motor. You should already be familiar with kilowatts which are 1000 watts. One kilowatt is 75% of one horsepower.
Harley’s LiveWire electric motor
Kilowatt hours: This is the capacity of the battery. Think of how many litres you can fit in your fuel tank. A one watt-hour battery will power a 1W electric motor for one hour. The new Lightning Strike Carbon Edition has a 20kWh battery which means it can produce 1kW of power for 20 hours.
That’s just a start.
There are a lot of other factors involved and other terms for battery energy-density (watt-hours per kilogram), charging terms (AC, DC and fast chargers) and a variety of range calculations that take into regenerative charging.
One of the biggest hurdles in the coming revolution of the electric vehicle is finding enough charging stations so motorists can ride and drive beyond the city limits.
Taiwanese motorcycle and scooter manufacturer has a unique idea for private charging stations that can be owned by individuals.
Now they have launched a range of charging stations called NOODOE (pronounced “new dough”) which can be privately owned by individuals.
No, it’s not an April Fool’s Day prank.
The cloud-based systems could actually be a viable alternative to the inaction on the part of big business and governments to supply suitable infrastructure for the nascent electric vehicle industry.
Noodoe chargers
Obviously business will be involved once EVs reach a significant proportion of traffic.
And surely governments and businesses will have final say over the placement of such infrastructure.
Electric vehicle infrastructure
Noodoe charging
In Australia, businesses and governments are working together to build charging EV infrastructure.
Electric motorcycles may be poised to become the next big thing, but the much-anticipated Lightning Strike strikes out three times as a big disappointment.
There was much anticipation that Californian electric startup Lightning Motorcycles would make an attractive and affordable version of its $US38,888 LS-218 which at 350km/h (218mph) is the world’s fastest electric motorcycle.
Instead, the Strike strikes out as a disappointment in style, price and specifications.
Style strikes out
After all, it’s just another sports bike in a world where sports bikes are on a fast downhill slide in popularity.
We expected it might be a more utilitarian bike with an upright riding stance and styling that would appeal to a mass market.
The Strike just looks like any petrol-powered sports bike. It’s ok, but nothing spectacular or appealing to a wider group of buyers that might consider an electric alternative.
Prices start at $US12,998 ($A18,300) and rise to $19,998 ($A28,200). Those prices do not include on-road costs.
The basic model sounds like a reasonable price and it’s comparable to some of the Zero models which ranged from $A18,000 to $A25,000 on the road when they were last available in Australia in 2017.
However, the devil is in the detail of the specifications.
Spec strikes out
The base model costs around the same as the base model Zero, but only has range up to about 160km while the Zero has about 275km.
Zero SR/F
If you want better range, you have to buy the Strike Carbon Edition which has up to 320km of range.
That surpasses the flagship Zero SR/F with 130km highway range and 260km city range and a top speed of 200km/h.
The Strike has higher top speeds of 217-240km/h.
But top speeds are beside the point. You can’t do those speeds on our highways and we can guarantee that if you did them on the race track, range would be dramatically reduced to just a few laps of your favourite circuit.
Then it would be time to recharge the bike.
Once again, the Strike strikes out.
The standard bike’s 10kWh battery takes up to three hours to charge with the 3.6kW onboard charger.
You can drop that time by about an hour if you buy the $US1500 ($A2100) 6.6kW onboard charger.
The Strike Carbon Edition has a 20kWh battery and standard 6.6 kW charger and you can buy a Level 3 DC fast charger to bring charging time down to about 35 minutes.
There is no word on how much the charger would cost, but it’s probably about double the 6.6kW charger.
However, fast charging is not good for the life of your battery and should only be done occasionally.
Fast charging will also only charge a battery to 80% of its capacity. To completely charge a battery, you need to do a full charging cycle.
Conclusion: 3 strikes – you’re out!
Lightning Strike scores third strike
Lightning Motorcycles plans to release the Strike for sale in the US in July with no announcement yet for the rest of the world.
It will not become a big player in the market and it will not be the spark that ignites the electric revolution.
