We’re now at the end of September 2023 and, for over a year, Kawasaki has been revealing small details to the world about the development of its electric and hybrid motorcycles. Its plans for electric models have been discussed since at least 2019, while plans for hybrid motorcycles began to emerge a little later, from 2020.
It’s reasonable to think that the manufacturers have a lot of conversations going on behind closed doors, so there’s no good way of knowing for sure when their internal discussions really began. What we do know is that Kawasaki brought its prototype electric and hybrid motorcycles to the 2022 Suzuka 8 Hour race in Japan. Participants were able to see the two bikes on the circuit, and we in other parts of the world were able to see photographs and videos.
A few months later, EICMA 2022 took place in Milan, Italy, in November. Kawasaki presented a Ninja EV prototype, a Z EV prototype and its hybrid EV prototype – or HEV for short. While the Ninja and Z EV prototypes were conceived and talked about by Kawasaki as short-range urban mobility bikes with removable and replaceable batteries, the HEV was conceived more as a long-range fun bike
Now that we are at the end of September 2023, we have seen Kawasaki UK announce the imminent arrival of the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1 electric motorcycles. Although it hasn’t yet confirmed the exact dates, the brand says they are coming soon and has shown a set of official promotional images of these bikes in what appears to be their final production version.
Due to the Torino Chronicle’s (or Torino Cronaca’s) footage for another report in Turin city center, it looks like we have our first contact with what could be the final production version of the Kawasaki HEV. The newspaper published the video as an Instagram video, where it has already received almost three thousand likes at the time of writing.
In the video, we can see a camera van partially blocking a motorcycle as it rounds a corner. You can clearly see someone sitting inside, recording videos and/or photographs. The doors of the van are open and the driver of the motorcycle has long blond hair. A man in a black T-shirt and jeans holds up white papers and tells the Torino Cronaca staff that they can’t film or photograph the bike, which naturally leads them to zoom in, as you can see in this video.
Kawasaki itself has presented the HEV in public before, so the shape of the bike is nothing new. Instead, what appears to be our first look could be the final appearance and graphics of the next HEV. Obviously, nothing is official until Kawasaki says it is, but the white and Kawasaki green paint job we see on this bike looks very similar to the finished graphics of the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1 that were recently revealed.
We can also see that the graphics on the side of the bike designate this vehicle as the Ninja HEV. Again, not exactly a surprise, given the extensive fairing and design of the HEV we’ve seen so far. However, it’s still nice to see further confirmation.
It’s not clear when we can expect to see an official announcement about the launch of the Kawasaki HEV in any market, but EICMA 2023 is coming up at the beginning of November. We’re currently in the phase of all the new model announcements that manufacturers are making for 2024, so stay tuned.