2026 Honda WN7 Electric Motorcycle Spec Announced: 9 Things To Know!
Welcome back everybody to another Moto Bob video where today we’ve got some big news from Honda with the most significant details announced about their first ever recreational electric motorcycle. It’s a big development because of course they’re the biggest motorcycle manufacturer in the world and so could this be a turning point for electric motorcycle sales which I think it’s fair to say have been a little bit underwhelming so far. other manufacturers attempts haven’t exactly flown off the shelves. And so in this video, we’ll go through all of the key details that they’ve announced, including the power, range, weight, charging times, and the allimportant price to find out if this one is going to be any good. Now, I think the first thing to state is that this isn’t some faroff concept anymore. They announced the EV fund concept upon which this is based back at Ikema in Milan in November last year, but this one is set to go into production by the end of 2025. And it should be in dealers by early 2026. So about 6 months away, I guess. And the order book is now immediately open. If you like the look of what you see in this video, you know, as we get through it, you could hypothetically march down your local Honda dealer now and put a deposit on one. So, we’ll start with how it looks, which we already knew a little bit about because of that concept bike from Ikema. And they have kept it fairly true to that concept with some of the key features in common. So, you’ve still got the singlesided swing arm. You’ve still got that very clean bodywork. You’ve still got the horizontal daytime running light at the front with the stacked headlights and also those little side pod things which do give it a bit of visual interest and break up the rest of the fairly slab-like bodywork. I think visually, you know, it’s always going to be a little bit dominated by the battery because it’s such a big component, but it does give it a little bit of visual heft, I guess, which helps to give it some of the appearance of like a larger capacity naked where the engine tends to be a bit bigger. Really though, the big development from this particular press release today is that they’ve shown it in its sort of um final finish as opposed to the camouflage that we’ve seen so far. And while it is typical of Honda in that it’s fairly understated, I do kind of like how clean it looks with the black and also there’s a bit of contrast with the silver under the belly and through the tail section. And they’ve used a little bit of copper as well on the sort of rear end of the body work on the little side pod just to break it up a bit. And I suppose that does help to differentiate it from the petrol bikes in their lineup where, as far as I’m aware, they haven’t ever really used that sort of finish. Now, they also announced the name, which I’m sure you’re aware of if you’ve seen the title or thumbnail of this video, which I’d hope you have if you clicked on it, but it’s WN7. So, they’re no longer using the EV fun title, which was, you know, from the concept. And I think that’s probably for the best because that maybe comes across as a little simplistic perhaps. Now, they’ve also given a bit of information as to how they got to this name. So, the W is taken from the slogan that they’ve been using during development, which was be the wind. And maybe that does sound a little corny actually, but I will say in their defense that there is something to that in terms of what it feels like to ride an electric motorcycle. It has this forcefulness, but it’s also silent. And so, maybe I understand a little bit about why they use that. N is for naked. So that leaves room for, you know, other models in this particular lineup. They could launch a WS7 perhaps if they wanted to do a sports bike. And then the seven is a little bit confusing, but they say this is used to represent the power class. Again, that gives them some movement around this theme. So they could do a WN or a WN3. But when you get into the details, it’s not exactly clear as to what they’re referring to here. You see, I thought 7 would mean middleweight, as in 700. And they do say in terms of peak power, it uses an 18 kW liquid cool motor, which is equivalent to a 600cc internal combustion engine. So, on the one hand, they’re kind of saying 600. On the other, they’re saying 7. Whichever you want to interpret it as though doesn’t really matter because 18 kW and I’ve double checked this a few times comes out at 24 horsepower which feels like a long way off either 6 or 700cc’s of performance. That’s around about the same power that the GB 350 makes with its 350cc aircooled single. And so honestly I think that sounds a little bit underwhelming. And I think the way the bike looked and the way they’ve been promoting it, I was expecting a bit of a leap in terms of performance, but that’s way off. For example, even a Zero SRF, which makes over 80 kW. So that’s much more comparable to like a sporty naked bike. That’s more like 110 horsepower. Now, Honda in the press release do go on to say that its peak torque figure is around 100 new meters and that’s closer to what you’d expect from a 1000cc internal combustion engine. And so maybe this reference to, you know, 600 700 levels of performance is a kind of blend or, you know, more of an indication of how it feels in the low to mid-range as opposed to the top- end peak power figure. I guess this is one to ride out on the road and see how it feels under acceleration. But let me know your initial thoughts anyway down in the comments below. On to charging times though, another important part of the equation because some people might be willing to, you know, let go of a little bit of peak power and proper grunt as a trade-off for maybe lower emissions and sound from the bike itself, the convenience of charging at home, and also potentially the lower cost of charging versus paying for petrol, although we’ll talk about the price of the bike in a bit. Either way, you know, charging time super important. And they say that this one will be CCS2 compatible. So, automotive grade rapid charging. And that with this, if you’re out and about and you can find one of those chargers, you can get a 20 to 80% top-up charge, which I think they use as like a common use case scenario, which is probably true. You’re not always going to run it right down. And that can be done in just under 30 minutes, which is pretty decent to be fair. You can imagine stopping off, getting a coffee or whatever, and then you can be back on your way for another decent amount of riding. Charging at home, on the other hand, can be done with a 6 kVA wall box, and that will do a full charge from zero to 100% of course in under 3 hours, although it can depend a little bit on temperature. They added a bit of small print to the press release. Uh, still, as long as it’s less than overnight, I think that’s going to be good enough for most people. Although, I guess that depends on the range. And there’s still some questions that need to be answered here. You see, they did give a figure in the press release of 130 km, which is about 80 miles. But they didn’t really say under what conditions. Most electric motorcycle manufacturers quote a selection of ranges, almost like a menu of ranges depending on how you’re going to ride it. So, they’ll give you an urban figure, a motorway figure, maybe two different speeds, and then also a combined figure, which is said to be a blend of the two. this 130 km or 80 mi they haven’t stated. And so if that is um you know a motorway figure then potentially the range is pretty good. If that’s an urban figure then expect a lot less out on the motorway and out of town or maybe it’s somewhere in between and they’ve stated the combined figure there and so hopefully it’s a you know a compromise of the two. Just to be clear on that, you know, urban ranges tend to be better because the speeds are lower, so there’s less rolling resistance, less wind resistance. Also, you’ve got the benefits of regeneration with most bikes under deceleration or braking. So, that helps to charge the battery back up. And that happens a lot more often in town when you’re in stop start traffic or stopping at the traffic lights as opposed to when you’re cruising at a constant speed on the motorway where you are battling those higher rolling resistance figures. the higher levels of wind resistance and also there’s rarely any chance to desel and recharge a little bit. So again another wait and see until the full details are released at Ikema but it doesn’t look like there’s any significant development here or massive leap forward otherwise I think they’d be saying that now there are two more key pieces of information that I think most people were hoping to find out. We covered this bike already a few times in our weekly news roundup and these questions came up a few times and one of them was the weight figure. Now typically the heft of the battery accounts for a large part of the motorcycle and that pushes a lot of electric naked bikes for example up over 250 kg and beyond. They really do feel weighty compared to the sort of petrol equivalents. But this one comes in at 217 kg, which I think is going to feel more similar, let’s say, to the petrol bikes that we’re used to riding at the moment. It’s no featherweight, let’s say. A CB750 Horner, a fairly affordable bike and makes 90 horsepower peak that comes in at 192 kg fully fueled up. So 25 kg less. But yeah, it’s not bad either. And I guess they’ve probably managed to get a decent weight by pulling back a bit on power, which requires not such a big battery versus some of those other bikes, while still getting that reasonableish range figure out of it. The other one, of course, is the price, and they’ve announced that, too. And again, at £12,999, well, it’s not terrible. If you think about the Live Wire, for example, a few years back when that came out, that was up near 30 grand. So, we’re less than half. But again, it does look less powerful, less pokey, and so maybe they’ve had to pull back a little bit in those regards in order to hit this price point. So, yeah, heading in the right direction, but still not quite competitive with a petrol bike. I mean, for 13 grand, you can get a heck of a lot of good stuff. And if you did want just a 24 horsepower naked bike, you could get one for a lot less than that. Still, there’s some of the nice features here. It’s got a 5-in color TFT dash, which is fairly common on their bikes. Pretty much standard fit, but it does get the dedicated EV layouts, which I actually tested out quite recently on their CUVE scooter, and I’ve got to say, I really like them. I actually thought they were very fresh looking, easy to get on with, and had a bit of their own personality. There’s also connectivity with their Road Sync app, and I think that will probably come as standard, plus LED lighting all round. And they’re also saying if you order before IKMA, so order before November the 4th, you’ll get a complimentary seat bag thrown in. So assume, well, there’s at least that in terms of soft luggage. Maybe they’ll offer a couple more bits as well. So like I say, I’d love to know what you think of it down in the comments below. Personally, I think I’m a bit underwhelmed with the power figure and I’d like to know more about the range, but ultimately, yeah, things look quite incremental still, and it’s going to require a big change in battery technology to get something that even comes close to challenging the appeal of a petrol motorcycle. This, I guess, still could be good for shorter trips, but it’s going to be something like the solidstate batteries that VW recently showed in one of their Ducatti Moto ebikes that do give you that massive improvement that I think we’re all looking for. This was at IAA, which is a mobility show in Berlin a couple of weeks back. And basically, they’ve worked with a battery company to come up with this solid state battery. They say it’s the first time that it’s ever been used in a vehicle of any sort, and it’s got a much higher energy density. So, it can be more compact. There should be more range, but also it can withstand uh greater range of temperatures as well, which should allow for even faster charging. One of the figures I saw thrown about was I think 10 to 90 or 10 to 80% in about 10 or 12 minutes. And so, that is the sort of thing that really does start to sound appealing, especially if it does have more range than the bikes that we’re looking at at the moment. A few weeks back, the CEO of Stark, who make the brilliant electric motocross bikes, said he believes in a couple of years time, electric road bikes will indeed be able to challenge petrol-powered road bikes. And he thought that, you know, 800cc sort of performance was possible, couple of hundred miles of range, and 10 minutes of charging. But he didn’t really give any way of substantiating that or give any background as to how he got to those figures. I think when I talked about it in a recent news show, a lot of people were skeptical about it, myself included. But perhaps he’s coming from a place where he’s expecting this sort of solid state tech to become more mainstream in the motorcycle industry within the next couple of years. He gave a timeline of 2 years. So maybe that’s when we’ll get to something like this. But yeah, in the meantime, let me know what you think down in the comments below. I’ll also put on the screen my review of that CUVE so you can see some of, you know, Honda’s electric capabilities already. Do give that a watch if you’re interested. Hit subscribe for more of the latest motorcycle news and reviews right here on MotoBob. A massive thanks for watching today and we’ll see you in the next
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