The latest in the Electric Motorcycle Revolution comes to us in the form of the “Emflux One,” an electric sport bike concept out of a small startup in Bangalore, India.
Electric vehicles are catching on everywhere, especially in places with a high popluation density where air pollution is a large concern. India as a population has largely converted its two-stroke rickshaw/tuktuk vehicle population to four-stroke because of those concerns. Now, electric is taking over from all kinds of combustion engines, not just in India but worldwide.
The guys that run the startup, Emflux Motors, admit that the idea people have about electric vehicles in India is that they are “slow and boring and flimsy, badly designed and unreliable.” Emflux motors is looking to break all those misconceptions and build a motorcycle that is well designed, fast, robust and high-quality. If the test-rider video host’s experience on the “Emflux One” concept bike is anything to go by, if this bike gets into production it will absolutely be a contender, not just in India but possibly globally.
Emflux Motors has been around for about two years now, and to have a working prototype in that time is pretty impressive. The company started with five people and is now up to 21 people. The company is not limiting itself to sportbikes, though, or even motorcycles. Vinay Raj Somashekhar, the co-founder and chief designer at Emflux, says “once we develop the technologies to run an electric superbike, it will be easier for us to build any sort of vehicle that we want.”
The bike is, to my eye, a real masterpiece of design. It’s just gorgeous. And beyond its looks, it’s running Brembo brakes, LED lights, and Öhlins suspension. It has ABS and traction control. It can go from 0-100kph (0-62mph) in three seconds with a top speed of 200kph (124mph), in its prototype form, though that is 40% of the performance expected from the production version. It puts out 71hp and 84nm of torque (that’s 62fl-lb) on a bike that, in its final production version, is expected to weigh 169kg (not-quite 373lbs) and will go 200 kilometers (124 miles) on a charge. The company claims the bike can achieve an 80% charge in 36 minutes.
Emflux estimates the cost of the final version of the bike to be around six lakh rupees, which in USD is just kissing $9,000. (Or, it was this morning, but just now it’s down to $8,600: this is a problem with the Rupee; it varies so much against the US Dollar an estimate is a moving target. So, nine grand give or take a thousand depending on what time of day you do the math.)
Click through and watch the video for a bonus unintentional tour of Bangalore. And stick with RideApart as we bring you along for the entirety of the Electric Motorcycle Revolution!
Source: YouTube