Honda has the V3, and now ZXMoto wants to make a V5 engine!

Honda might be preparing to bring a V3-powered naked bike to production, but ZXMoto founder Zhang Xue appears to have decided that three cylinders arranged in a V simply aren't enough.

The Chinese motorcycle boss has confirmed via social media that he is working on a new five-cylinder V-type engine of around 1,000cc. The eventual aim is to put it into a high-performance production motorcycle. 

Before that, though, Xue has ambitions to take the engine racing, with 2028 apparently being targeted for a competitive debut.

There isn't much in the way of hard information at this stage, and Xue hasn't revealed definitive power figures, dimensions or even a confirmed name for the motorcycle. Some reports from China have suggested a capacity of around 1,100cc and more than 210bhp, although those numbers should be treated as speculation for now.

What isn't speculation is that Zhang Xue has publicly discussed the V5 project, and given what ZXMoto has managed to achieve with its existing three-cylinder platform, it isn't quite as fanciful as it might first sound.

Honda has already put the odd-numbered ‘V’ engine in the spotlight

The timing is particularly amusing because Honda has spent the past couple of years making a very big deal about its own unusual engine configuration.

The Honda V3R 900 E-Compressor first appeared as a concept at EICMA in 2024, catching plenty of people off guard with its 75-degree V3 layout, which is boosted by an electrically driven compressor. 

Twelve months later, Honda has given us considerably more information about the engine and the bike it will arrive in, which is now officially known as the V3R 900 E-Compressor Prototype.

The basic idea behind Honda's engine is quite clever. Rather than using exhaust gases to drive a conventional turbocharger, the V3's compressor is electrically driven, meaning it can operate independently of engine speed. Honda says that allows the system to provide boost, and therefore additional power and torque, whenever it is required.

Honda claims the 900cc engine can deliver performance comparable to a 1,200cc motor while still meeting modern emissions requirements. We don't yet have a definitive production power figure, but the potential is obvious. A smaller engine making big-engine performance without simply adding displacement is exactly the sort of trick manufacturers are going to need as emissions legislation continues to tighten.

And Honda doesn't appear to be viewing the E-Compressor as a one-bike experiment. More recent patent drawings have shown the technology fitted to a range of different engine configurations, including an inline-four, V-twin, parallel twin and even the six-cylinder engine used by the Gold Wing. Honda has also shown the system applied to what appears to be an NC750 and a CBR1000RR-R.

So while Honda's V3 is unusual, there is a clear reason behind it. ZXMoto's V5 is unusual for rather different reasons.

Why does ZXMoto want five cylinders?

There is no obvious need for a V5 if the sole objective is making a fast motorcycle.

Modern four-cylinder engines can comfortably produce more than 200bhp, while V4s have already proved themselves on both the road and racetrack. Ducati has made the V4 a defining feature of its superbike range, while BMW and Kawasaki continue to extract huge amounts of performance from the tried and tested four-cylinder configuration.

Five cylinders therefore isn't an easy, or even obvious, route to more power, but there is some logic behind it. And it’s not just to grab some headlines.

Adding another cylinder allows Zhang Xue to play with firing intervals, power delivery, vibration characteristics and the physical packaging of the engine. The downside is that all of those things become more complicated. A five-cylinder engine needs more components, a more complex crankshaft and careful consideration of cooling, intake, exhaust and valvegear.

That is all work to do further down the line, and for now, the V5 remains a development project, rather than a motorcycle you can test ride and buy.

There are no confirmed production specifications, no official power figure and no confirmed launch date. The reported 200-plus horsepower output and roughly 1,100cc capacity are not figures ZXMoto has formally published, so they should be treated accordingly.

There is also the small matter of actually making the thing work reliably, economically and within modern emissions regulations.

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