During his keynote address at Kawasaki’s EICMA presentation, Kawasaki Motors President Hiroshi Ito announced that the Japanese brand would unveil three electric models in 2022.
An ambitious plan, the news is part of Kawasaki’s previous statement that it plans to bring 10 electric and hybrid motorcycles by 2025. Clearly, Team Green isn’t waiting around to make good on that promise.
What those models could be is up for debate, and they are likely to be electric replacements for some of Kawasaki’s small-displacement machines that operate worldwide.
That might be a far cry from the Ninja 400 based electric motorcycle that Kawasaki has been testing and teasing on social media, but it marks a concerted effort from the brand for a future without fossil fuels.
In his address, Ito-san made mention of Kawasaki’s commitment to a bevy of power sources, including hydrogen, hybrids, and eFuels. The Kawasaki Group as a whole though is focused on the future of hydrogen power.
As such, we can expect a number of advancements from Kawasaki, in terms of the production, transport, storage, and use of hydrogen fuel cells, not only in the two-wheeled space, but also on a larger scale for transportation.
The timing of this news is perhaps the most interesting, as we have already seen other movements in this space in the past month, with Ducati announcing that it will takeover the MotoE series in 2023, and that MotoGP will run only on synthetic fuels by 2027.
It has taken a long time for the motorcycle industry to come around to a future that doesn’t include fossil fuels.
What that way forward will be seems to be still up in the air – in terms of electrics, eFuels, and hydrogen fuel cells – but the first steps are being taken. What a crazy time to be alive.
Source: Kawasaki Motor Europe
Comments