THE news a motorcycle maker is planning to put an electric motorcycle into production isn’t really any surprise, although the news that Jawa motorcycles is working up an electric machine has us more interested than we should be.
The simple reason for our interest is that Jawa is no normal bike manufacturer, its offerings are simple, classically styled motorcycles. The Jawa range doesn’t include even a hint of the modern, something even retro giants Royal Enfield do, thanks to their Himalayan adventure bike. It does get you wondering what the new electric motorcycle could look like!
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With no official word from Jawa on the machine, we’re going by reports we’re picking up from India, where multiple sources all seem to be making the same sort of noise.
It’s said that the bike is being solely developed by Jawa, with no outside help from parent company Mahindra, with parts like the battery, speed controller and motor likely to be brought in from the outside. Although with Mahindra’s considerable knowledge in the electric vehicle sector – they even own a Formula E team – it seems sensible that some trickle-down of technology will occur.
It’s also being reported that the bike won’t feature the kind of crazy power and torque figures we now associate with electric motorcycles. Instead, the Jawa project is claimed to be aiming for performance figures that are close to those of its petrol-powered offerings. That means a power output of around 30bhp and torque of about 20ft-lb.
We’re also hearing that Jawa is going against the grain with the delivery of the bike too, shunning the usual electric motorcycle torque curve. Instead, the machine Jawa is planning is said to have an electric motor that delivers power and torque closer to the way that a petrol-powered bike does. Could that mean gears and possibly a clutch? Only time will tell.
The final piece of the puzzle that has us nicely excited is the styling of the bike. If one thing is for sure, it’s that the bike will look like no other electric motorcycle on the market. Jawa’s bikes are as retro as retro gets, and to the casual observer could easily be mistaken for a genuine machine from the 1950s. So, an electric motorcycle that doesn’t look like a transformer, where do we sign up?
