With a growing number of start-ups on home soil beginning to penetrate the expanding EV market, Indian motorcycle giants Hero MotoCorp. has revealed it is developing its own volume electric motorcycle… but not only that, it insists it will be a performance one.
One of India’s largest manufacturers, Hero reveals it is developing a new EV line which it is dubbed Electric Ultra Sport, or e.US for short.
The company is entrusting development to its technical centre in Munich, Germany but the R&D will continue to be conducted in Jaipur, India.
While electric motorcycle development has become a buzzword in all R&D departments across the motorcycle industry, they are at varying degrees of progress with the Harley-Davidson currently the only volume brand to have gone all the way to bringing a large zero-exhaust emissions machine to market.
However, Indian firms are further down the path than most with Bajaj known to be working with KTM to develop a line of performance EV motorcycles, which the Austrian manufacturer suggests will be hitting the road in 2022.
It is these models that Hero appears to have an eye on since it has gone to lengths to point out it wants to create a performance machine with a variety of drivetrains, while keeping costs down. Should Hero achieve its aim, it’s technology could prove very attractive to bigger firms looking to technology share at a reasonable price.
It’d be interesting to see how Hero has developed its design chops since it revealed the iON design concept way back in 2014, though on that occasion it was purported to be a hydrogen-fuel cell two-wheeler.
We’re also curious to see what ‘performance’ means in Hero’s plans given its sportiest model right now is the Hero Xtreme 200S with 18hp…
