ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => Electric Motorcycle News => Topic started by: TheRan on October 06, 2023, 04:48:45 PM
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This could perhaps be less of a disappointment than their recent fully electric bikes. The concern with hybrid bikes has always been where do you put the battery and motor on an already cramped gas bike, it looks like Kawasaki's solution is to just stretch the thing out. Looks much longer than most other A2 class bikes and more on par with something like a H2, and notice it also has twin brake discs up front so maybe it's up there when it comes to weight too. Not much extra power from that electric motor though at 12hp (the same as their fully electric bikes) and a 48v battery which I can't imagine is any bigger than one of the singles in their fully electric bikes.
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/kawasaki-ninja-7-hev/
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Hybrid powertrains combine the literal worst aspects of both drivetrains in a combination guaranteed to disappoint on every level.
Cas :)
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Hybrid powertrains combine the literal worst aspects of both drivetrains in a combination guaranteed to disappoint on every level.
Cas :)
It has reverse and takes off like a liter bike but has an 451cc engine.
Wonder if Kawasaki and the swappable battery consortium will use nominal voltage or peak voltage for their "badge" number?
I get 166 amps to make 12hp at 48 volts.
It is puzzling to me as the motor makes torque and for my Ktm using their torque value the motor has to be spinning over half max to get the rated hp. How much can the electric motor really add at say 3 mph in this take off scenario,
Is this going to be a five or six speed transmission in EV mode?
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Here is motorcycle.com's take on the new Kawasaki "strong hybrid": https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/new-model-preview/2024-kawasaki-ninja-7-hybrid-first-look-44595262
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It sure is intresting, I would want a seat equally comfortable for both the rider and passenger. It has a pocket of sorts to help hold the rider in place.
It is backwards from electric propulsion and range extender. Range extender meaning small ice generator that likely will have emissions requirements that can be met. Sort of like sub 20 hp requirement for off road diesel machinery that dont generally use that fluid VW past ceo tried to avoid.
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Now we want to hear what the MSRP will be and into which countries it will be marketed.
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My guess would have been £8k, a £6k Ninja 400 with a couple grand on top for the motor and battery. However their all electric model is £7.8k and has lower component spec, they have an extra battery (probably) but this has an entire engine and all the associated components. I think this might end up being close to £10k.
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My guess would have been £8k, a £6k Ninja 400 with a couple grand on top for the motor and battery. However their all electric model is £7.8k and has lower component spec, they have an extra battery (probably) but this has an entire engine and all the associated components. I think this might end up being close to £10k.
It could be a tough sell at that price.
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Definitely. They say it competes with a litre bike (starting at around £12k from them) but really it's probably going to be more like a 650 which is a few hundred quid cheaper than their all electric model. If this was the same price then it could be compelling and they could probably do it, but then that completely kills off the all electric model.
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This one looks a lot more interesting than either of the e-1 models. It sounds like they're trying their hand at a transmission similar to Yamaha's YCC-S plus an all-automatic shifting mode. I would love to have something that can glide around town quietly, get great gas mileage, and still have the range and refueling advantages of gas for longer trips. I'd rather have an Experia, of course, but this Kawi will probably be a lot more affordable and you can avoid the woes of the charging network.
This first version might not compare well to the Honda NC750X, which already gets fantastic gas mileage, has an automatic transmission option, is priced under $10k, and has had plenty of time on the market for refinement, but future ones might be worth getting.
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The trouble is the all electric mode is going to be next to useless, 12hp peak moving a bike that will probably weigh close to 200kg and a sub 20 mile range. It's a gas bike first with a little extra oomph from a small electric motor, that significantly adds to the cost. It sounds like what you're after is something more like an electric bike with a gas range extender, so imagine your SS9 with a ~100cc engine strapped to it and a gas tank.
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Devil's advocate here - that power is entirely sufficient for 99% of all urban usage.
However, it's still pointless, because if you were doing urban things you'd literally just have a 12bhp bike and a 650 for the motorway stuff, for very likely the same price as this hybrid thing.
Cas :)
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Sufficient, but really not what you want and no one is going to subject themselves to that after having spent so much on the bike. Actually from my experience riding my 125 that has more power and a lot less weight that thing may actually struggle to reach the speed limit on some of the steeper hills in all electric mode.
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Exactly, but in an urban environment, the speed limit is at most around 60mph, and usually 20, 30 or 40. It's fine for that. Just ... pointlessly complex and expensive, like all hybrids. It's useless stopgap technology. If you're gonna burn petrol, then burn it as cheaply as possible, in a simple ICE bike. If you want to do something about the environment, buy a full BEV. This half-arsed hybrid stuff made sense for a very short time in the car world because it made them (in some cases) significantly more efficient on average but for bikes the questions being asked are not answered by hybrid powertrains.
Cas :)
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The fully electric model can only just do 61mph, with less weight and not losing power through a gearbox. And it's not just about being able to reach a certain speed but being able to do it in a timely manner. I have a hill right near my home with a mini roundabout at the bottom, it's only a 30mph limit but on my 125 it takes me nearly half the length of the hill to get up to that speed and the whole way I have cars right up my arse. Filtering to the front of the queue at some lights on this thing and then not being able to pull away any faster than the car next to you that's not even trying would just be embarrassing.
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Here is another article regarding the Ninja 7, which mentions that it will be marketed in the EU and the UK starting in January of next year. Pricing has still not been determined: https://thepack.news/kawasaki-introduces-the-all-new-strong-hybrid-motorcycle-ninja-7-hev/
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A few more numbers revealed such as torque and rpm figures, and a ridiculous 227kg. Still no price yet.
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/kawasaki-ninja-7-hev/
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Price likely to be around £10k I reckon. Weight disappointing but entirely unsurprising - weighs the same as my SR/F! (Which genuinely does accelerate like a litre bike... at least, up to 100mph or so)
Cas :)
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I expected it to be lighter, that's 59kg more than a Ninja 400. If it is using the battery from the fully electric model then that's only an extra 11.5kg (or 23kg if it has two of them, which I doubt), a motor and controller shouldn't add 47kg on top of that (or even 37kg if it's dual battery). The fully electric model only weighs 135kg so they managed to keep the weight down on that.
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Actually, I watched a couple of videos about it and they had some Kawasaki visuals that seemed to show warm air passing over the battery box from the engine (good for cold weather performance I guess), but more relevantly its shape was square like a car battery which precludes the use of the removable batteries. That makes sense but does imply it's not a plug-in hybrid which is really lame, do we have to stay 10 years behind cars, can we not use this tech transition to like, catch up a bit.
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So MCN have a review up and it's even worse than I imagined. A price of around £12k (I assume that's an estimate Kawasaki gave them and not just a guess), a 7 mile all electric range at 40mph, a poor automatic transmission implementation, fuel economy that's barely any better than an NC750, not so amazing performance, poor suspension, and they say it's buzzy above 60mph and realistically is best cruising below 70mph.
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/bike-reviews/kawasaki/ninja-7-hybrid/2024/
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Disappointing, but not surprising for a first iteration. I didn't expect it to compare well to the already-mature NC750X, but I expected it to come a little closer. It sounds like Kawi's engineers made something they didn't want to ride, so their hearts weren't in it and they were left guessing about things like fully automatic shifting in sport mode, even though they already had a successful example from Honda to copy. I'll be interested to see what v2 looks like in ~5 years.
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There's some interesting details in there. I seem to be correct about it not being plug-in capable which is a massive oversight in my opinion if you're trying to push an economy line. Other oddities include the battery is charged only by the regular generator not the traction motor so no regen and slow charging only once you've shoved all the lithium.
Overall it looks pretty disappointing, Kawasaki really have not put their best foot forward with these three bikes I feel.
Reading the technical section I was also reminded that hybrid cars use a different battery setup to be cars that suits their load patterns better which complements my above statement about this not being the removable battery (in addition to it not being mentioned in the article).
Boost mode apparently makes the battery too hot btw, interesting.
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It does seem like something that is not going to sell well at all. I think Kawasaki was just practicing with the technology and how it could be integrated into a motorcycle chassis. Likely a fun project for the engineers and something to impress regulators in the EU. Did you notice the comment about Kawasaki hiring new staff that had EV experience to help with the project?
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Yeah, I did and I think that's a good idea but I note it doesn't say what they're experienced in. I view these three bikes as being noble but lacklustre first efforts (I know they did concepts before but a full on production bike is different). The 2 pure EVs look like they fall pretty short of the mark and honestly I do not see the point of the hybrid at all.
I'll give Kawasaki a nod for putting their money on the table and giving it a try, they could definitely have done better though and I hope the dire sales numbers I expect these to do don't dissuade them from coming back with something better.
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Same thing happened with turbos in the 80s. The problem is, that bikes are already efficient/fast. If you go sticking a whole load of expensive gubbins on it that make it more efficient/faster, it simply becomes more expensive/needs all the same chassis upgrades a bigger engine has, and you've solved nothing you couldn't have solved just by making the engine lower tuned/bigger in the first place.
I don't quite get why the Kwack guys didn't see this 1000 miles away and realise it was a daft idea if they couldn't produce it at exactly the same price as the NC750. Or, well, any of the other 750s, all of which are capable of 85ukmpg if you actually ride to speed limits, and weigh 30kg less, and don't have any hybrid powertrains to go wrong.
That's kind of the thing with bikes... a 400 costs the same as an 800 to make, more or less.
Cas :)
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Here is Revzilla's take on the Kawasaki Ninja 7 hybrid after riding it for a day during the introduction of this new model: https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/2024-kawasaki-ninja-7-hybrid-first-ride-review
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Much more positive than previous coverage, and it has me rethinking my “check back in 5 years” position. If the video’s acceleration vs the ZX-10R is truly reflective of what it can do in a straight line at lower speeds, then that puts it in a very different category than something like Honda’s NC750X, which will never deliver blistering acceleration. It seems like an affordable way to get a lot of the benefits of an Energica without the drawbacks: Strong off-the-line performance, a quiet motor for dense cities, forward-and-back walk mode, but you don’t have to deal with the awful charging network that seems to get worse by the day.
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It doesn't however solve the fundamental problem of ... continuing to burn stuff.
Cas :)
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Here is another ride review. This one has some interesting information regarding the operation and design of the drive train and transmission of the Ninja 7 HEV: https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/manufacturer/kawasaki/2024-kawasaki-ninja-7-hybrid-review-first-ride-44596150
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Kawasaki adds a "Z" version to their HEV lineup. Maybe it will be slightly cheaper than the Ninja model: https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/new-model-preview/2024-kawasaki-z-7-hybrid-first-look-44596354
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Here is the latest news regarding the new Kawasaki Ninja 7 hybrids. Oddly, both the Ninja 7 and Z7 models will be the same price in the U.S., even though the Ninja has more plastic on it. Both models are priced at $12,500, so it seems to me as if Kawasaki isn't planning on selling very many of them here: https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/new-model-preview/kawasaki-ninja-7-hybrid-and-z7-hybrid-are-coming-to-america-for-2024-44598106
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Is that 48 volts nominal or peak. Kind of low voltage I would think considering the price which out the door price may differ to the higher.
Maybe they will follow KTM with importing 1000 of their freeride exc models and then dropping the price with no extra fees until they find out what the price is to sell them all.
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Is that 48 volts nominal or peak. Kind of low voltage I would think considering the price which out the door price may differ to the higher.
I expect nominal. The voltage is likely because the motor is shared with their removable battery bikes which have to be engineered to match the specs of the battery pack.
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48v has a number of benefits. You don't need special shielding and it's easy to step down to 12v for accessories. It's a very common voltage in the solar and e-bike space so there are lots of standardized components at commodity prices. Most nominal 48v packs peak at 54.6 volts IIRC.
Pricing is about where I would have expected. It will be a very hard sell in North America, of course, but I'd still love to see other attempts at this type of drivetrain. Just like electric cars, it's a much better fit for the luxury end of the market than the cheap end, but OEMs in the early days just wanted to confirm their biases with $40k penalty boxes that competed with $14k economy cars. A hybrid Goldwing could be a very interesting proposition, but who knows when someone with the resources to do it right will be willing to take the risk?
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I see elsewhere a nominal voltage of 50.4 and a nominal power of 27.2 amp hours. Multiply those for 1.37 kwh. Rated hp of 7.0 and max hp of 9.0 and that is motor not rear wheel.
Using Don's 7 miles per kwh which I think would be good for a 502.7 pound (add an extra 2.2 pounds if it has to have evaporative fuel apparatus) that is about 10 miles on the battery. If 48v is so common maybe one could hack in socket for a plug in charger?
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I think I saw in one review they said they would get around 12 miles on the battery, so yeah you're pretty close. It's certainly a usable range if you just have to pop somewhere nearby quickly and don't want to wait for the engine to warm up, but it's just a shame that while doing so you'll be riding a bike that gets out performed by even the weakest 125 scooters.
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and even worse, with the ninja name on it, when that name used to mean something.
It's almost like that cheech and chong movie where they put the Rolls Royce grill on a volkswagon or some other beater car.
Aaron