Photo: Yamaha
Yamaha’s excellent pricing policy is not limited to the new MT machines, and the recent announcement concerning an electric version of the Vino scooter is the best proof for this. The 2015 Yamaha e-Vino will be sold in Taiwan first for 58,500 Taiwanese dollars, which at the current exchange rates makes up for some €1,500 or $1,890.
If you’re asking yourselves why Yamaha chose Taiwan for the debut of the e-Vino, we’ll offer you some figures which will explain everything. Around 700,000 motorized two-wheelers are sold each year in Taiwan, with some 10,000 of them belonging to the 50cc class, as far as insurance companies see them. Some 70 percent of these are electric scooters, and this makes the e-Vino a machine with very good sales potential.
In order to keep the price at a very competitive level and live up to the expectations the tuning forks badge brings, Yamaha has reduced the e-Vino down to the essential trim. Yamaha built the e-Vino with the expertise the older EC-03 model brought. It employs a 50V Lithium-Ion removable battery which can be easily detached from the bike and brought indoors for charging. That is, you can simply take it with you in the office or in your friend’s house to put in some amps back into it.
If you believe you can stuff your shopping items in the front basket or a backpack, you can use the underseat storage of the e-Vino to house an extra battery and thus extend the range significantly. Iwata says that the e-Vino is good for some 30 km (18 miles) with a medium weight rider (55 kg or 121 lb). Not sure how many fellows in Taiwan weight 100 kg or more, but if Yamaha thinks to sell the electric version of e-Vino in Europe or North America, a solid upgrade is mandatory.
E-Vino also comes with a boost mode which will help riders on uphill roads, albeit it this will eat through your power resources. Yamaha wanted to retain the cool looks of the single-sided rear suspension, so the e-Vino doesn’t come with the hub motor you’ve been expecting maybe.
Honestly, we’d definitely like to see such affordable e-scoots in Europe in 2015. Yamaha hopes to build and sell more than 2,000 e-Vino in Taiwan in 2015. If the e-Vino has a good debut, maybe we get to see a worldwide version.
The small, green, affordable commuter
Scooters are probably the top-ranking commuter in Taiwan, and for the dense population in urban areas, scoots are both practical and affordable. We are talking about medium commuting distances under 20 miles or so, which allow customers to use small-capacity e-scooters successfully. If you want to get a better picture of the extent of scooter usage in Taiwan, check out this mind-blowing scooter commuting story we ran earlier in 2014.In order to keep the price at a very competitive level and live up to the expectations the tuning forks badge brings, Yamaha has reduced the e-Vino down to the essential trim. Yamaha built the e-Vino with the expertise the older EC-03 model brought. It employs a 50V Lithium-Ion removable battery which can be easily detached from the bike and brought indoors for charging. That is, you can simply take it with you in the office or in your friend’s house to put in some amps back into it.
If you believe you can stuff your shopping items in the front basket or a backpack, you can use the underseat storage of the e-Vino to house an extra battery and thus extend the range significantly. Iwata says that the e-Vino is good for some 30 km (18 miles) with a medium weight rider (55 kg or 121 lb). Not sure how many fellows in Taiwan weight 100 kg or more, but if Yamaha thinks to sell the electric version of e-Vino in Europe or North America, a solid upgrade is mandatory.
E-Vino also comes with a boost mode which will help riders on uphill roads, albeit it this will eat through your power resources. Yamaha wanted to retain the cool looks of the single-sided rear suspension, so the e-Vino doesn’t come with the hub motor you’ve been expecting maybe.
Honestly, we’d definitely like to see such affordable e-scoots in Europe in 2015. Yamaha hopes to build and sell more than 2,000 e-Vino in Taiwan in 2015. If the e-Vino has a good debut, maybe we get to see a worldwide version.
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