Selling coals to Newcastle? Honda Motor Co., Ltd. will be supplying Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. with electric motorcycles for the home market. Based on Honda’s “EM1 e:” and “BENLY e: I” Class-1* the models are powered by Honda Mobile Power Packs with swappable batteries. This is actually the culmination of an agreement first discussed back in October 2016.
The key areas of discussion included: 1) supplying 50cc scooter models, 2) joint development of next-generation 50cc business scooter models, and 3) collaboration toward the popularization of electric motorcycles in the Class-1 category. The Class-1 category: A category defined by the Road Vehicles Act of Japan as “vehicles equipped with two or more wheels and an engine with total displacement of 50cc or less or an electric motor with rated output of 0.60 kW or less.”
In April 2019, Honda and Yamaha, together with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. and Suzuki Motor Corporation, established the Swappable Battery Consortium for Electric Motorcycles for the purpose of popularizing electric motorcycles. The Consortium discussed the possibility of standardizing mutual-use swappable batteries solutions to address key challenges of electric motorcycles – range and charging time. The Consortium reached an agreement to establish common specifications in March 2021.
