Electric-supercharged triple shown in running prototype form
When Honda showed the V3 E-Compressor engine last year – mounted in a makeshift trellis frame but lacking any bodywork – it stole the EICMA show by proving there’s still life in the internal combustion engine. Now Honda has unveiled a close-to-production spec prototype machine using the same motor and carrying the name V3R E-Compressor.
While there are still huge gaps in the details that have been provided, we’ve also gained some insight into what to expect from the bike when it reaches showrooms, including the fact that the engine measures 900cc and thanks to its electric supercharger offers performance akin to a 1200cc bike.
That’s still a pretty vague proposition: 1200cc bikes on the market today range from sub-100hp to over-200hp in performance terms, but the Honda looks likely to be nearer the upper end of that scale thanks to the DOHC V3 engine format that’s never appeared in a motorcycle before.
While we’ve seen plenty of four-stroke triples of around 900cc, they’re invariably inline engines rather than vees, and on the few occasions that the V3 layout has appeared in a bike, it’s been in a two-stroke machine like Honda’s own NS400R and a variety of racers over the years. We know the new Honda engine uses a 75-degree V-angle, but we don’t know the crankshaft design so it’s impossible to guess at the firing interval or how it will feel in use.
The EICMA show bike gained a new chassis, using the engine as a stressed member and quite different to the trellis design that the engine debuted in a year ago. It also gets radial Nissin brakes, adjustable suspension and a three-exit exhaust system that looks bulky enough to comply with current emissions and noise regulations. The single-sided swingarm is retained, and the whole thing is wrapped in naked styling that’s dominated by an asymmetrical layout, with a huge air intake on the righthand side of the tank to feed the electric supercharger sitting above the engine.
That e-compressor can build boost at any rpm, eliminating the problems like lag and promising to maximise performance throughout the rev range while also improving emissions performance.
There’s no official word on when the production bike will be ready, but given the bike’s development so far we’d expect to see a showroom-ready machine at next year’s EICMA.
