One of the nuggets buried in Kawasaki’s 2021 model year motorcycle debut was the work that the Japanese brand is making on the front for alternative drivetrains to internal combusting engines.
Having already shown us work on its electric motorcycle designs, now Kawasaki is teasing some info from its hybrid-electric two-wheelers.
There are two interesting takeaways from the video that Kawasaki posted, though most of the short clip is a bit of marketing fluff.
First off, we get to see the Kawasaki hybrid-electric motorcycle prototype spinning on the dyno, which has a noticeably different sounds once the electric motor kicks into gear, and shows that Kawasaki is fairly far along with its hybrid efforts.
The second interesting tidbit is Kawasaki’s proposed use case for the drivetrain, which switches between three modes of use: pure gas, pure electric, and hybrid functions.
The nameless city that Kawasaki is portraying in the photo above is Paris, France – and there is a good reason why Kawasaki is using this location to highlight the versatility of its brand.
Paris is at the forefront of the push for banning fossil fuel vehicles, with the French metropolitan set to restrict access by petrol bikes to its city center by 2030.
As the video shows, the motorcycle travels the highway into the city under internal combustion propulsion, switches to electric within the city boundaries, and the offers a hybrid boost during spirited riding. Presumably, this is the best of both worlds.
It will be interesting to see what this technology looks like once it comes to fruition, but it certainly shows an intriguing path for the future.
Source: Kawasaki (YouTube)
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