Kawasaki continues to plug away at its electric motorcycle project, and unlike the rest of the industry, it’s actually talking about the bike. Almost all the major OEMs are running skunk works EV projects, but they’re under wraps. The Kawasaki EV electric motorcycle is making regular teaser appearances on YouTube.
When it first appeared at EICMA in November, 2019, Team Green didn’t have much to say about the its new electric motorcycle. Kawasaki displayed what was essentially a stripped-down chassis with an electric powertrain. Company reps didn’t share much in the way of technical information, but everyone noticed that the bike had a chain drive and a four-speed gearbox. The machine’s charging time, battery range, weight, motor output and all the other important details were left a mystery.
Your Electric Future:
We didn’t even get a proper name for the bike at its EICMA debut. Some outlets are calling it the Kawasaki EV Endeavor, but that seems to be a just a title for the project, not the bike’s proper name. This is just a guess, but it’s hard to imagine Kawasaki would bring a powerful new sportbike to market without bearing the Ninja badge.
Since the EICMA show, footage of the new Kawasaki EV has been popping up regularly on the company’s YouTube channel. Like you’d expect, it’s all shot in very controlled environments, at test facilities or closed-down tracks. The Japanese OEMs aren’t big fans of the “accidental” spy shots seen so commonly from the Euro manufacturers, and despite the regular updates, Kawasaki isn’t actually giving too much information away. So far, in the five episodes uploaded to YouTube, we’ve basically been given details we already knew.
There is one important takeaway here: Everyone’s talking about battery bikes these days, but very few mainstream manufacturers appear ready to release a proper electric sportbike. There are plenty of electric step-throughs on the market, Harley-Davidson has the LiveWire, and KTM has its all-electric offroad machines. But, at this point, Kawasaki does appear to be working hard at its EV project, and it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll see it soon.