AS is the way with any conventional petrol-powered bike, the motor of an electric motorcycle is the big talking point. It’s the place where the magic happens so to speak, and with the Triumph TE-1 electric motorcycle project, there is a hell of a lot going on.
Triumph TE-1 electric motorcycles | motor specs and features
To find out more about it, we sat down with Andrew Cross of Integral Powertrain’s E-Drive division, to discuss the finer points of the TE-1’s powerplant.
At the heart of a bike is an extremely compact and light powertrain that combines the bike's motor and inverter unit within one element. The inverter, the part of the machine that converts the current from DC to AC ready to be turned into kinetic energy, is located on the outside, the business end on the inside of the bike.
You can’t really get a grasp of how small and compact the unit is from the video, but once the cameras had finished rolling Andrew invited me to lift up the complete motor and inverter unit. It’s super light, weighing around 15kg in total, and completely at odds with what you expect of something capable of producing the numbers being spoken about - Power is quoted as 177ps (174bhp), while torque is a very handy 80lb-ft.
As with any electric motorcycle, the motor and the final product is only as good as the batteries that will allow you to ride it. To find out more about that, we sat down with another member of the Triumph TE-1 team in the form of Williams Advanced Engineering’s Dyrr Ardash, Senior commercial manager to find out more. That interview will be going live very soon, stay tuned.
