A new patent from China has revealed that one company is breaking the electric-bike mould and building a battery-powered tourer
Until now, poor battery range has forced makers of electric-powered bikes to concentrate on short-range models. City commuters, scooters, motocrossers and trials bikes have all been made to work quite convincingly under electric power.
The bike you see here is actually in police garb – it’s a common quirk of Chinese firms that they offer new models to the authorities before the public – but there’s little question it’s a touring-style machine and the big question is how it will address the range issue.
These styling patents give no clues as to the technical secrets inside, but there’s clearly space for relatively large batteries in that fairing, as well as a big electric motor.
Weight on a touring bike is also likely to be less of an issue than on other machines.
The patent application connects the design to a company called Rariro, which is part of Guangdong Yatian Industrial Co Ltd. Rariro specialises in electric vehicles and brushless motors, so that fits, although it currently makes golf carts and strange electric cars that look like 100-year-old Ford Model Ts.
Yatian makes bikes and scooters, so the combination of its two-wheeler experience and the electric vehicle know-how of Rariro makes some sense, particularly given China’s growing market for electric motorcycles.
With petrol-powered two-wheelers increasingly being banned from Chinese cities due to pollution, and an increasingly large number of Chinese companies developing electric bikes as a result, the country may well become a world leader in the field.
By Ben Purvis
