Honda’s First Full Electric Motorcycle! Honda WN7
[Music] Hey everybody. Hope you’re all doing all right out there. Now, I know electric bikes aren’t much interest to many people, but the bike I want to talk about today is actually very, very important because it is the first electric bike, fully electric bike, as far as I’m aware, from any of the big four manufacturers. Honda have made the WN7. Um, and I’ve been looking over the specs and I’m actually really quite impressed with it. Although I know instantly when I tell you two things, you’re not going to like it. So, let’s take a look. So, this is the Honda WN7. Um, looks wise, I think, you know, most of it’s okay as far as electric bikes go. Not so keen about how squared off the battery and everything is, but then it’s a huge thing that has to be there. It needs to be exposed for cooling. So, you know, it is what it is. and you know, looks are in the eye of the beholder, but it’s the facts and figures that people are going to really care about. And on the face of it, when I first saw this, I was like, that’s ridiculous. But I’m going to show you this is actually really quite impressive what Honda have offered givingven that it is Honda as well. So, the specs of the bike are as follows. It’s going to be available in two variants. There’s either an 18 kW version for the A2 license, although the A2 license allows you up to 35 kW or an A1 license or CBT level where it will have 11 kW. It weighs 217 kilos. It has a range of 80 mi and it costs 13,000. Now, I know you will say £13,000 for the for a weak A2 or a 125 equivalent is ridiculous, but do remember that the performance of an A1 electric is very much better than a 125 petrol. The reason for this, the way they measure power on an electric is done differently to a petrol. With a petrol bike, obviously the power comes up as the revs go up and it has a peak of where the power hits. So, you know, it might have 11 kW, but it’ll hit that at a certain peak in the power range. Whereas, an electric bike is measured by sustained power. So, it can basically it’s the equivalent of having a petrol bike that gets straight to its power point and just stays there throughout every single gear with no gear change. So, the feel is a lot faster. In fact, I have videos on a Zero FX E uh and if I think I’ve got also ridden the A1 version of the FX compared to my DRZ 400 SM, a 400cc single, very comparable. You don’t get the same top end, but you get acceleration and they are good bikes to ride. Whether you like electrics or not, that’s kind of like, you know, again, like with looks, it’s a preference thing. But facts and figures wise, they are powerful. They are quick bikes. So, this will be a nippy bike. They’re saying it’s got the equivalent of a 600cc in power. I mean, obviously, that’s not going to be the same if it’s not the A2 version, but, you know, it’s going to be quick. 100 new meters of torque. Uh, I think the A1 could still have the same torque figures. It’s just the the maximum peak power. Uh, it’s using a water cooled motor, which is good because that helps increase the longevity of the motor. It would be cool to see a watercooled battery as well. Um, but I can see why they’ve not done that. But that would help longevity of battery and be able to charge it a bit faster. Let me just skip through the pictures here so you can see the color variants. Uh, oh, you get a free luggage if you like pre-order, I believe. Uh, as you can see here, it can take type two charging or CCS2 charging. That means you can fast charge it at a charging station. Other 125 equivalents like the Zero FXE can’t do that. They have to plugged into a wall outlet basically. You can get adapters and things to change it, but you’re only going to be able to charge them at 3 kW. So, looking at the specs, you see 18 or 11 kW version, 100 new meters. Speed, maximum speed is more than 110 km an hour. That’s about 68 mph. I would like to have seen that a little bit higher, you know, like comfortably over 70 would be a good thing to see. Maybe 80 mph would be a good thing. And the maximum range is more than 130 km which is about 80 miles more than right. It would be nice to think that that 130 km 80 mi is you properly gunning it around and if you eek it out you get a bit more. That’s the way I would really like to see the ranges represented with bikes. But very often they represent what is the sort of almost hyper mild version of the mileage. Not all of them. Some will call it mixed range and then it’s a bit of both. Battery type lithium ion. Normal charging type two and quick CCS 2. Uh charging from 20 to 80% in about 30 minutes. Now that is on par with the best electric bike that’s ever been made in my opinion, which is the Energy Eva. No, not Eva, sorry, the Energy Xeria, which can charge 80 20 to 80% in 30 minutes. But that’s got a much bigger battery with more range and it’s a much more powerful bike. But, you know, look at the looking at what’s here. Okay, so we’ve got 80 miles of range, about 70 mph, and can quick charge at a station in about 30 minutes for $13,000. And it comes from a reputable brand of Honda. Do Honda make this themselves? Who knows? But Honda is known for doing good electrical stuff, so maybe, you know, this is actually a really good thing as far as electric bikes go. Now, when I first saw this, I thought people are going to look at the price at 13,000, which is a lot, and also see that 80 mile range and think that’s not very good at all, which I will agree with you, but it’s early days. If we do a comparison, say with RGNT, this is a brand that I’ve ridden one of, reviewed one of their bikes, not this exact one, but a similar one that had a really impressive range on it for the price. The price has gone down since then cuz it was about 12,000. Uh this one is £9,000 roughly. It’s not out yet, but we’re seeing a mixed range of 150 km, which is a bit more. 120 uh kilometers maximum speed, which is, you know, a little over 70ish. I’m not sure if Oh, no, this is an A1 license. So, turbo power is obviously peak power, but not sustained power of 46 kW. So that’s actually a lot more powerful for a very short amount of time, but the sustained will have to be the same of 11 kW. So not quite sure what’s going on with this here combined braking system. That’s not not something you really want. Um, so this is quite good. Apart from the fact that I don’t think you can do quick charging with this, which is a really big cell. Obviously, you can’t take this to a normal station, plug it in, and get your 30 minute charge to mostly refill it. But also, it’s from a company that you don’t know if they’re going to be there next week. This is one of the huge problems with a lot of the electrical brands is will they even be there next week to warranty your bike if something goes wrong? Will they be able to get parts in the future? Now, we can’t say that Honda’s not going to be asking you to wait 2 3 months on parts, but it’s less likely. You’re still going to be going to a Honda dealership and dealing with Honda customer service even if you’re not dealing with Honda build necessarily cuz it’s very dependent on if they actually build this by themselves or not. But if we look at the next largest electrical brand of a similar bike, we’re going to be looking at Zero. Zero’s been around a long time. They’re not likely to go anywhere. So they have the Zer S, which is a A1 license level bike. 86 mph, much more around the area that I’d like to see, and 154 miles of range. Much, much more usable because you need to remember that what most people want in range is to back. Now, if you got 80 miles of range, that’s 40 miles each way. That’s not really a huge distance. Most people’s commute on average, however, is a lot less than 40 miles on average. Some people there’s a lot more, but on average, it’s less. So, that would work for most people, but being able to have what says 77 miles each way is a lot better than 40 each way. It’s nearly doubling the mileage, in fact. Uh charge time 1.3 hours. That’s quite a lot slower. But this bike is £15,000. If you wish to charge this faster, if we go down to the charging information down here, the charger on it is a 3 kW integrated, which means it’s going to be a kettle lead. I don’t think this has got the ability to plug in a type two charger plug from a normal station. Again, you can get adapters, but do you really want to do that? And that’s uh charges in we go. Charge standard 4.5 hours. Now, they’re promoting the fast charging version. It would appear that’s that’s a little disingenuous because that says charging time of 1.3 hours, but down here it’s saying 4 and a half with the standard charger. Now, you can get this 6 kW rapid charger which you fit into this bike and that allows you to plug it into a type two charger at a station. But if we look at how much that is the right power with zeros by the way you have power tanks your storage space under in where would normally be a petrol tank you have a cubby hole you can either fill that with a larger battery like this or you can put a bigger charger in it. So this 6 kW rapid charger goes in that space allows you to charge it at stations. You can see it’s for the S 2024 2025 but it is £2,900. So 15 12 for the bike, 161 17 £18.5,000 to be able to get something which is electric A1 license and can charge in about I think uh let’s just go back in 1.8 hoursish 1.3 up to 95% charge. Yeah, they gave the the rapid charger speed rather than the actual integrated charger speed. That’s a little disingenuous, isn’t it? But anyway, as you can see, as much as the Honda, it’s a lot of money for a 125 electric, the fact that it’s and and I know it’s not got the same range as the Zero, but the fact that it’s from a big company such as Honda, it’s got the power that it’s got, and it’s got the range that it has, which isn’t as much, but it’s only £13,000, and you get that all included. You’d have to pay an extra three grand for a rapid charger. It’s a stoning deal as far as electrics go. Not compared to a petrol, of course, but as far as electrics go, this is a really strong entry as the first fully electric bike from any of the big four. And it’s a sign of things to come. this bike if if they just were able to get a bigger battery in it so they could extend that range to you know 140 mi maybe maybe 120 mi and they could get that speed up just a little bit so it was more comfortable I mean it says it says more than it might be capable of doing 85 mph we don’t know but it would be better if they’d suggested that it could easily do say 75 so it was comfortable on a motorway as I say at first when I first saw this I thought this is a lot of money for not a lot of bike. But then when you see all of the extra bits included like the charger and all of that, it’s a very very strong entry from Honda. Regardless of whether you like electrics, regardless of whether they’re really going to take over everything, I will say now because I know there’ll be comments, hydrogen is not going to be a replacement for internal combustion engines. It’s just not. You will not get the same range. It’s the problem is the density of the gas and what range you get from it. That’s why the Kawazaki has got that giant caboose on the back of it with seven, six, seven tanks on it because they need that volume and it will still have a very low mileage with that. You’ll have to compress the gas to a ridiculous level if you want to get more hydrogen on a bike in a smaller space. You will you won’t even get it’s it’s I once worked it out for the equivalent range of a standard tank on a bike. The the volume area needs to be about four times the size of a petrol tank at 10,000 PSI or something around that point which is very dangerous. Um hydrogen people say electric bikes catch fire. They do but it’s nothing like that much hydrogen at that sort of a pressure. If that ruptured against your leg, goodbye leg. And if that got ignited, goodbye bike you and a lot of stuff in the area. Um, that would be catastrophic. Also, hydrogen can leak through steel tanks. It It’s such a small molecule that it just works its way through the lattice work of other materials and it will just leak everywhere. So, hydrogen is not going to be the answer as an internal combustion. You could use it in a catalytic converter style fuel cell, but still what you get back in in range and fuel and efficiency from creating the electricity to to create the hydrogen and getting it back is poor. And there’s also synthetic fuels that people bring up bring up, but that again is not really a good viable idea. Um, when it comes to small travel, small equipment, particularly smaller than cars, like cars are electric and that makes a lot of sense. With a bike, it makes even more sense for it to be electric. So, like it or lump it, they are probably going to discontinue as in stop the sale of new internal combustion engines at some point in the future. I don’t believe it will be on the dates they’re currently suggesting. Personally, I used to think it would be. I don’t think it is anymore. I do like electric bikes, but they need to be better than they are now. and they need to be cheaper. But this currently is arguably the most electric bike for the least amount of money out there because of the charging because that’s so important. A lot of people can’t charge a bike at their house. Like you can get an FX uh a Zero FX125 equivalent for about £11,000 which will have I think more mileage and a little bit more top speed. And you know it’s a great bike. I love them. But they still have a kettle lead, the 3 kW charging. You can’t change the fact that you’ll need to charge it outside or in a garage or somewhere uh if you want to do that. And it’s a long long charge. To have fast charging on it for that price is really impressive and it kind of completely blows the range problem and the possible top speed problem out of the water in my opinion. So there you go. The Honda WN7 is a is an electric bike which not a lot of people are going to like. Um, and I don’t know if it’ll even sell that well because it’s a lot of money compared to what you can have now. But is a sign of things to come. It’s very strong. And remember that once Honda’s, you know, Honda’s got their one out. It’s coming out. I think it’s November 25. Yamaha’s going to have to follow suit. Kawazaki will have to, you know, they did do an electric hybrid, remember? uh which was I think was a 400cc with an electric motor with it which allowed you to ride around on the electric motor under about 20 mph around town. Then the petrol motor kicks in for when you’re going faster and further and you can also boost it with the electric motor. I believe those bikes were something like 12 or 13,000 and they were I’ve seen those new for sale for about six or seven because no one was buying them. It’s the problem with those is you have all the all the drawbacks of an internal combustion engine with all of the drawbacks of an electric at the same time in one bike. So I don’t think hybrids until they get really power dense batteries and really powerful small motors, that’s a good idea, but you’re going to need that before it becomes more viable. And by the point point that you’ve got really high density batteries and really powerful small motors, well, they’re probably going to have discontinued the the internal combustion side of it. So, it’s a good sign of things to come if you don’t mind electrics. If you don’t like them, of course, this is the devil incarnate, but things are this is cheaper. Basically, this is a lot cheaper than a zero and it’s offering more. So, it’s a good start. So, good work, Honda. Quite impressed. Hope to see the competition of the other companies out there and where this might go in the future. There you go. I hope you enjoyed the video. Even if you don’t like electrics, at least you’re now informed about what’s going on with them. Hit the like button. I’d really appreciate it. Uh, a huge thanks to my patron and YouTube members who help support this channel and help me support this time that I’m going through at the moment, which if you’ve seen recent videos, you’ll know. Um, but this, as I say, I’ve wanted to talk about this for a few few weeks since I saw about it a couple of months, but obviously with everything going on, I haven’t had a chance until now. There we go. Till the next one. Bye-bye. [Music] [Music]
The Honda WN7 is a very important milestone in the electric motorcycle market. In comparison to the competition, it is an incredible deal; however, I still do not see many being purchased due to some limiting factors.
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