Yamaha trademarks new 125cc class electric scooter, revealing continued EV progress

No one can accuse of Yamaha of racing too quickly toward electrification of its two-wheeled lineup. But it appears the company might be slowly lifting its dragging feet after filing a new trademark for an electric scooter.

When we first covered Yamaha’s unveiling of the E01 at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2019, it was just a concept vehicle. Impressive, but a concept nonetheless.

Now it appears that Yamaha may actually be planning to bring the E01 electric scooter to production. That’s based on a new trademark filing for the scooter’s nameplate.

Yamaha applied for the E01 trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office earlier this month. Assuming no oppositions are raised during a public objection period, the trademark will be granted in mid-May of this year.

The Yamaha E01 is a 125cc class electric scooter that appears to be designed with comfort in mind. Upon its unveiling in 2019, it was notable for looking much more practical than most concept vehicles, further buoying hopes that Yamaha was actually planning to bring the scooter to market.

At the time, Yamaha described the scooter in a statement provided to Electrek:

Combining Yamaha’s scooter and EV technologies, [the E01] brings practicality for everyday use as well as a quality ride exceeding that of conventional scooters. In addition to excellent comfort, it features a design that expressively highlights a new generation of sporty styling.

While Yamaha has been slow to the electric game, this of course won’t be its first electric scooter.

The company also offers the 50cc class Yamaha e-Vino, though that scooter is a bit disappointing in the specs department. Despite (or perhaps because of) its small and cute design, the e-Vino features a puny 500Wh battery pack offering just 29 km (18 miles) of range.

Yamaha also has a more nicely spec’d electric scooter, the Yamaha EC05. That scooter was developed in a partnership with popular Taiwanese electric scooter maker Gogoro though, and thus mostly sports Gogoro’s licensed proprietary technology.

At the same time that Yamaha unveiled the E01 concept back in 2019, the company also showed off a number of other interesting electric two-wheelers including an electric trials bike.

If the E01 is headed for production, that could mean good news for the Yamaha TY-E and other electric concepts showcased by the company.

Lastly, while we like to rag on Yamaha a bit for punting on electric motorbikes while startups pass them by, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the company’s electric bicycle division is actually quite progressive.

Yamaha has a number of high-performance and high-quality electric bicycles and produces its own electric drivetrains.

Yamaha’s various divisions are highly segregated though (the company’s guitar or golf club designers don’t appear to have much overlap with their electric vehicle engineers, for example), and thus Yamaha’s impressive progress on electric bicycles hasn’t seemed to bleed over into electric motorbikes and scooters… yet.

via: Bennetts