Autos & Motorbikes

The Chinese market will soon be able to try out the zero-emission motorbikes which Honda is trying to mass market. The ride will be the all electric scooter called EV-Neo which is expected to have a range of 30 kilometers in a single charge.

Honda aims to make the EV scooter which is about the same size as a 50cc motorbike appeal to consumers in Japan. The company will start leasing EV-neo in Japan by December of this year. According to insiders, Honda is not planning to release the scooter immediately in other countries but is seriously looking into the Chinese market which can translate to an EV scooter demand of around 17 million per year.

During a recent test ride with the press, Honda executives explained that their engineers are set to adjust the performance of the EV scooter to make it click on the market.

Honda has not yet announced the sticker price for the EV-neo but they claim that it will be somewhat similar to the tag price of a gasoline powered scooter given that running costs, power expenses, and maintenance are put into account.

Charging of the scooter’s battery to 80% of its capacity will only take about twenty minutes when a fast charger is used. Normal charging takes about 4 hours.

Honda’s competitor, Yamaha is also planning to launch their own version of an EV scooter is going on sale before the end of 2010. Yamaha is also planning to market this in Europe and in Taiwan.

Tags: electric motorbikes, electric scooters, EV-Neo scooter, Honda

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 8th, 2010 at 18:26 and is filed under Honda, motorbikes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.