Bikers aren’t known for their eco-friendly image, but Honda reckons there’s a huge un-tapped market for greener, hybrid bikes.
The motor giant plans to start selling hybrid petrol / electric bikes by 2010, following them with smaller, electric-only bikes by 2011.
It’s an amazing achievement, since previous hybrid engines had been thought to pose too much of an engineering challenge, and be too bulky, for use in motorbikes.
However, Honda’s bikes will use small hybrid engines between 200 and 1,000cc, offering fuel efficiency 50% higher than petrol-only models. Their commercial availability follows plenty of R&D by Honda, including development of its prototype Numo hybrid scooter, shown above.
Its new electric scooters will have engine sizes between 50 and 125cc, running for up to 30Km on a single charge.
Out 2010 | £TBC | Honda (via Mainichi Daily News)
Please be more careful when reporting information as there are several points that are completely different to the base news article and some that make no sense the way they are written.
For example “Honda’s bikes will use small hybrid engines between 200 and 1,000cc” – There is nothing small about a bike with a 1,000cc engine.
And “Its new electric scooters will have engine sizes between 50 and 125cc” – Wrong. Electric motors measure power in watts. It could be stated that the electric scooter would have a similar power to that size engine motorcycle and it would make sense.