Photo: Kawasaki
There’s a lot of activity from the house of Akashi lately, as it looks like Kawasaki is indeed making preparations for more important moves in the two-wheeled business. After the news regarding the mysterious Ninja R2 trademark surfaced two weeks ago, it’s time for another patent to step into the spotlight. This time we’re in future technology territory, as we’re dealing with one of Kawasaki’s electric motorcycle patents.
The patent is apparently old business which dates from 2011 or so and looking at the sketches doesn’t reveal anything special. The drawing shows rather generic schematics for an electric motorcycle, with a generous battery pack, a transmission and… nothing else.
Considering how radical Kawasaki’s Ninja H2 and H2R bikes have been, we’d rather be reserved in trying to anticipate what Akashi will deliver next. Anyway, it looks like Kawasaki is becoming more serious about an upcoming electric motorcycle.
The move is only natural and doesn’t surprise us. Other motorcycle manufacturers, some of which are known as veritable “pillars of conservativeness” (read Harley-Davidson) jumped into the e-bike bandwagon and Victory trademarked the Charger name, so things ARE getting serious on the electric side. As fast as the industry moves today, missing the start is definitely not one of the brightest ideas. Do you see Kawasaki as the first of the big manufacturers which deliver a mass-production electric sport bike?
So far, only talks and nothing palpable
If we were to take the drawing too seriously and look at the tail section of the bike, and its handlebars, we’d put our money on a sport bike. Now, we know that Kawasaki has been teasing us with all sorts of concepts and “threatened” to deliver a special high-tech battery pack, but all we’ve seen so far was the J-Concept at bike shows accompanied with the same old song about how cool the GIGACELL is.Considering how radical Kawasaki’s Ninja H2 and H2R bikes have been, we’d rather be reserved in trying to anticipate what Akashi will deliver next. Anyway, it looks like Kawasaki is becoming more serious about an upcoming electric motorcycle.
The move is only natural and doesn’t surprise us. Other motorcycle manufacturers, some of which are known as veritable “pillars of conservativeness” (read Harley-Davidson) jumped into the e-bike bandwagon and Victory trademarked the Charger name, so things ARE getting serious on the electric side. As fast as the industry moves today, missing the start is definitely not one of the brightest ideas. Do you see Kawasaki as the first of the big manufacturers which deliver a mass-production electric sport bike?
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