Legendary motobrendy Vespa and Ural acquire electric versions

6 December 2018

The Americans have lined up for the Russian motorcycle with sidecar

After last year at the famous EICMA motorcycle exhibition, famous as a favorite place to debut the first innovations of Moto industry, was shown a concept electro-scooter Vespa Elettrica

The concept of elektroskutery Vespa Elettrica was one of the main show-stoppers of motosalon EICMA 2017

its Creator – a famous Italian company Piaggio has finally announced that the novelty will go into production in September of this year, and in October has already begun accept online pre-orders. The estimated Elettrica electric scooter Vespa manufacturer Piaggio company in €6390 euros ($6995) or in installments with monthly installments of €99. First sale of elektroskutery will start in Europe, and next year he will be in the markets of North America and Asia.

Continuing for more than seven decades distinctive design scooter Vesta passed to the model Elettrica electric

Absolutely iconic (like Mickey mouse) scooter the Vespa, designed by aeronautical engineer Corradino D'ascanio in the post-war 1946, became the ancestor of all modern scooters  

Here Vesta and lived to the gas station from a wall outlet

 However, still on a motorized scooter not even announced the prices. However, the technical aspects of the innovations we've defined clearly enough.

The market will be offered electric and hybrid Elettrica Elettrica EX options Vesta 

Accordingly, the version of the Vespa Elettrica will be a purely electric scooter with Li-ion battery capacity of 4 kWh, which should be enough for 100 km (and 1000 recharge cycles, i.e. about 50-70 thousand km) and a hybrid version of the Vespa Elettrica X will be equipped with an integrated (ie non-removable) battery capacity of 2 kWh and conventional internal combustion engine working volume of 100 cm3, which increases the range of up to 200 km away.
While both versions feature the same electric motor with a peak output reaching 4 kW. The hybrid edition of the scooter was not an unprecedented step, as in the past, such a scheme was too expensive two-wheeled machine, while only partially improving her dynamics and range, which had not attracted neither environmental activists nor scooter-traditionalists.

Introduced in 2010, the three-wheeled hybrid scooter series MP3, never became popular, because model with a 125 CC motor and electric drive was worth as a solid with the usual 400-cubic power plant 

Actually, Piaggio has tested these schemes drive before in 2010 launched the three-wheeled hybrid scooter series MP3 with 125 CC engine, which ultimately failed the market due to the 1.5-times higher prices compared to the more powerful petrol versions. So the MP3 hybrid trike was sold for €9000, which is almost half more than the price of 400-cubic version. But everything flows, everything changes, as technology progressed the cost of batteries has fallen, and legal requirements for OEMs has led to the fact that they are now required to include in their lineups over the past eight years, the models with the electric drive. But is that enough to retail price of electrocycle dropped to an attractive level? Japanese Honda thinks so, and this is another example of the fact that OEMs now focus on hybrid scooters. So, Honda released in the beginning of this year pilot batch of hybrid version of PCX on the basis of the conventional gasoline scooter, but only in quantity of 2000 units and only for the local Japanese market. However, in the new IDTechEx report of the Association on the prospects of the electric two-wheeled vehicles on the 2019-2029 he argues that for scooters, which are mostly used in cities and on short distances, the power reserve (and the so-called "charging anxiety" – i.e., the density of the network of charging stations) must not be a critical limitation in the spread of this type of transport. Hybrid vehicle (especially connected – PHEV) will be a necessary step for the automotive industry, but for the evolution of two-wheeled vehicles they are not so important. So how are pure electric Vespa Elettrica cope with the competition? Aesthetically this is one of the most beautiful electric scooters expected in manufacturing (which is expected from the brand Vespa with his signature stylistic continuity scooters for over 70 years).

The ergonomics of the Vespa Elettrica is characterized by a thoughtfulness and friendliness 

Technical same characteristics of the Vespa Elettrica is consistent with the models of the German brand Govecs and Taiwanese Gogoro (both compete on the European market). According to marketing Piaggio, price Elettrica will match to the most powerful versions of Vespa scooters that are being sold in the market."

Russkaya "of electrotrauma"
If Vespa Elettrica – so to say "the sensation yesterday", the output electric version of the famous Russian heavy motorcycle "Ural" with a stroller was quite a fresh sensation. The official premiere of new items developed by the firm Ural Motorcycles from Irbit (the successor of the famous enterprises Eames and the owner of motorcycle brand "Ural"), together with the already venerable American maker elektronikov – a firm Zero Motocycles, and for the design of the motorcycle answered another California firm ICG, which, incidentally, was prepared and the prototype. In turn, Zero provided engineering support of the project during its development and testing.

On the "Ural-Elektro" mostly worked... the Americans

According to the CEO of the company Ural Motorcycles Ilya Khait is the motorcycle with a sidecar is the most suitable platform for designing electric bike, because he inherent greater comfort for the passenger, stability and greater safety than a two-wheeled motor vehicles, not to mention more space to accommodate the most bulky part of any motorcycle – a fairly capacious battery. In his opinion the experiment on implantation of the "Ural" electric heart completely failed, while maintaining the "good old" appearance electric drive gave the machine the following positive qualities: first, lowering the center of gravity that enhanced the stability and optimized weight distribution between the three wheels. Since electric bike has no clutch, just twist the throttle and steer, and accelerate "Ural-Elektro" is much faster than... with conventional gasoline counterpart. Therefore, according to Ilya Khait electric "Ural" could almost be used as the vehicle.

From the stroller and say that the usual "Ural" is used a fundamentally different type of power plant

The power of "Ural-electro" is 44 kW (60 HP) at 5300 min–1, ΜM=110 N•m. the battery is charged to 95% capacity in 13 hours from a household outlet. The reserve is 165 km, maximum speed – 140 km/h ground clearance equal to 234 mm, dry weight of 373 kg, gross vehicle weight – 600 kg.
Project Manager and Vice President of operations, Jason D says frankly: "One of the main tasks was the challenge to find the optimal solution for the location of the batteries – to maintain passenger comfort, not only motorcycle Luggage space and keep the stability inherent in three wheeled "to the Urals". The bike is intensively tested under real conditions – in the snow and in the rain, in the cold and in the heat, on the highways and city streets. We collected a lot of data that will be used in the next stages of the project. In the beginning I was very skeptical about the idea of building a electric bike on the basis of "Ural", believing that the implementation of this plan is not even worth wasting time and resources, but now I am absolutely convinced of the opposite and look forward to the further development of our prototype".
Ural Motorcycles yet and has no plans to deploy release of this electric bike. For making the final decision requires in-depth market research and analysis of the views of consumers and experts. Even in the case of a positive decision to establish mass production according to the manufacturer you will need no less than two years.

No one in the world except the Russian company Ural Motorcycles motorcycles with sidecar in series already does, so the appearance of elektroversiya "Ural" has caused a sensation among the fans of our brand in the United States

The official premiere of the electric "Ural" was held at the Progressive Motorcycle Show in long beach California in mid-November. The result is a sensational show for the bike is lined up quite a long queue of 1100 Americans wanting to buy this miracle of the Russian-American technology.

R & D center California-based company ICG managed very seamlessly insert the battery and the cooling fins of the electric motor in the traditional frame of "Ural", saving even the familiar contours of the gas tank (which have built in chargers, see photo on the splash screen)

However, no certain time, nor even the approximate prices of "Ural-electro" is not yet known. It is possible that the start of production the firm Ural Motorcycles have to go through the "national construction", i.e. crowd-investing (equity crowdfunding) investments from numerous bundling of micro investors. Anyway, for a long time focused exclusively on export markets for Ural Motorcycles suddenly appeared in front of the entire planet, turning his seemingly antique product (motorcycles with sidecar in the world market there are no more) in the trendy high-tech..