Kawasaki’s EV Endeavor electric motorcycle may be getting closer to production as new patent images show how Kawasaki would build and deliver the electric motorbikes.
Kawasaki’s first electric motorcycle production bound?
Kawasaki broke the news on the company’s first electric motorcycle project last year at the EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show.
We got to see the bike in person in Milan and check out its fairly rare manual-transmission gear box – something that most electric motorcycle manufacturers have eschewed in favor a simple single-speed drive.
At the time Kawasaki wasn’t giving any details about possible production. The bike was very much still a concept – and barely that.
But now there are new patent details that show Kawasaki is well into the production planning stages for the motorbike.
It’s too soon to say that this is a definitely signal towards production, but it does show that Kawasaki is putting effort into planning out the bike’s delivery strategy.
The patent drawings appear to indicate that the battery and control unit from the Kawasaki EV Endeavor electric motorcycle would be produced off-site in a separate facility from the motorcycle itself.
The battery and control unit would then be shipped to a third facility, along with the gutted motorcycle, where the two units would be married.
This method could have a few benefits. It might provide more flexibility with regards to complicated lithium-ion battery shipping regulations. It could also allow existing factories to produce the motorcycles with very little re-tooling or re-training, and instead allow the majority of the EV-specific components to be produced in a specialized off-site facility.
Visordown suggests that this mystery “third location” could be a dealership, where the bike and battery are shipped separately and then fitted together in the service department before being handed off to the customer for delivery.
It’s hard to say if that is the case or not, as Kawasaki hasn’t specifically stated where each step of this process would occur.
We don’t even know if the EV Endeavor electric motorcycle will officially reach production yet. The amount of effort that Kawasaki seems to be putting into the planning would indicate that the company is serious about it, but they’ve made no definitive announcement about any firm production plans.
Until then, we’ll just have to keep scouring new patents and hoping that Kawasaki drops a few more nuggets of details on us.
In the mean time, let us know what you think of Kawasaki’s plans to FINALLY enter the electric motorcycle market. Could an electric Ninja be in your future?
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