Upcoming Indian-made electric bike developed with Zero’s help
Last year Hero MotoCorp – India’s largest bike maker – unveiled its biggest push yet into the field of electric motorcycles under the Vida sub-brand. Already selling electric scooters under the Vida name, Hero showed several concepts at EICMA in November including the Ubex – an EV ‘urban explorer’ bike – and a trio of electric mobility solutions in the form of the NEX 1, a foldable, stand-on scooter with tracks to let it cope with kerbs and stairs, the NEX 2, a leaning three-wheeler like the Piaggio MP3, and the NEX 3 microcar. It also teased an upcoming production electric bike – the VxZ – which has now broken cover in more detail thanks to a set of design registrations showing its final shape.
In an apt convergence of names, Hero has tied up with Californian electric bike pioneers Zero on the development of the VxZ, and teaser images of the machine reveal it uses Zero’s Z-Force 75-5 air-cooled, brushless motor, as used in the Zero FX. That suggests similar performance to Zero’s machine, which offers an absolute top speed of 137km/h and the ability to maintain a sustained 113km/h, with the Z-Force 75-5 motor putting out 106Nm and 34kW.
The battery, too, shares some similarity with Zero’s packs, sporting the same style of badging on the side, reading LI for lithium-ion, and ‘X.X’ where Zero’s batteries normally state their maximum capacity in kWh. The Zero FX, for example, has an ‘LI 7.2’ badge for its 7.2kWh pack, while the bigger models extend as high as 17.3kWh.
The VxZ isn’t just a rebadged Zero, though. That battery appears to be a new pack, and sits in a tubular steel frame that isn’t shared with an existing Zero model, even though the overall design isn’t dissimilar. The cast alloy swingarm is new, too, along with all the styling. With Hero’s manufacturing might behind it, the VxZ has the potential to be made in vastly bigger numbers than any Zero in the American brand’s two-decade history.
Hero’s decision to tie in with Zero isn’t an obvious one. The company already has deep connections with Harley-Davidson, distributing H-D bikes in India and even building its own home-market Harleys, the X440 and X440T. Harley-Davidson, of course, is majority owner of LiveWire – arguably Zero’s fiercest rival on the electric motorcycle scene – making Hero’s choice to go with a Zero-based bike rather than a LiveWire-derived machine an intriguing one.
Although the Indian market is clearly a focus, Hero’s Vida brand is now available on export markets throughout Europe and the UK, so there’s a good chance the production version of the VxZ will be offered globally once it starts rolling out of the factory.
