Suzuki electric bike confirmed By Ben Purvis
Electric motorcycles seem to dominate the headlines in the industry even though they're few and far between in real life, and now Suzuki has become the final member of Japan's 'big four' to lay out a timescale for an EV range introduction.
The key date in Suzuki's plan is 2024. That's when the company says it will bring its first EV motorcycle to the market. The terminology is important here - 'EV motorcycle' - since Suzuki has already been dabbling in electric scooters, not least with the long-running development of hydrogen fuel cells for a string of Burgman-based prototypes.
Under Suzuki's plans, the company envisages a range of eight EV bikes by 2030, with the focus on 'small and mid-sized' machines. When it comes to bigger models, the company has its eye - like many others - on carbon-neutral e-fuels of the sort that will soon be introduced in MotoGP competition and even F1 racing.
The exact nature of Suzuki's first EV motorcycle remains unknown. The company has been developing an electric version of the Burgman Street scooter for several years in India - its main market - and was originally intending to have launched the model by now. However, it's reported to have been delayed by problems in coping with extremes of temperatures that the Indian market experiences, ranging from areas with average lows as cold as -20°C to those with average highs in the upper 40°C range. The bike may also have been delayed as Suzuki, along with the rest of the Japanese brands and several European companies, hammers out a standard for standardised, swappable batteries. The Burgman Street Electric model also doesn't fit Suzuki's description of its new 2024 bike as a 'motorcycle', as it's very much a low-performance scooter.
Like other brands, Suzuki's hand is being forced by legislation, and the target of eight EVs by 2030 may not be ambitious enough. In the UK, there yet-to-be legislated plans to ban the sale of sub-125 cc, CO2-emitting motorcycles by 2030, with all new CO2-emitting bikes due to be removed from sale by 2035. The EU is also in the process of putting a similar timeline in place, as are parts of the USA, especially California.
In comparison, Honda's current plan is to launch ten electric motorcycles and scooters by 2025, with the first four arriving by 2024, while Kawasaki has already shown the Z EV model that will be its first all-electric street bike. Yamaha has also unveiled production electric scooters, including the E01 and Neos, and is a major player in the e-bicycle market.
