This BMW Electric Sidecar Concept by Iago Valiño Has Us Thinking Dirty Thoughts

BMW Motorrad is already playing around with the idea of its electric future, teasing us with electric scooters and fancy futuristic concepts that practically ride themselves, but what if the company’s future actually rested in its past?

Take for instance this electric sidecar concept by Spanish transportation design student Iago Valiño. Drawing off-road inspiration from the El Solitario troupe, the concept is a nod to BMW’s sidecars from the WWII era, but with an obviously modern flare.

Making on-road and off-road variations, Valiño envisions an electric motorcycle that has an detachable sidecar, which boosts not only the luggage capacity of the vehicle, but also brings more battery pack with it.

The design is clean and full of nice touches, with plenty of nods to BMW’s past and what the El Solitario guys have been producing – which is great.

The real power of the design in our mind though is the practicality of an electric sidecar. While it is hard to cram a meaningful amount of battery power into a motorcycle’s form factor, the layout of a sidecar side-steps the issue.

The added weight of the batteries is less of a concern on a sidecar, meaning there is plenty of room to load cells on the motorcycle itself, but also the sled can become an energy carrier.

Making the bed of the sidecar out of batteries, like they do in the automotive space, allows for plenty of battery capacity, while keep the weight low on the center-of-gravity.

As such, it is easy to imagine 30 kWh or 40 kWh of energy being stored on a sidecar rig like this, and at that level of energy storage, we begin matching gasoline-powered machines on range.

Add into the mix the opportunity for two-wheel drive, or even three-wheel drive, and the benefits of the electric sidecar begin to outweigh (pun slightly intended) the petrol counterparts.

Instant torque hooking up three wheels is a good way to burn rubber and sling mud. All-in-all, it looks like a fun way to spend a weekend on two wheels.

We hope someone is paying attention who can bring the project to reality. We would like to see something like this leave the virtual space and become a viable motorcycle.