Suzuki Announces Plan For Electric Motorcycles

Kawasaki, Yamaha and especially Honda have been making big-news announcements about electric motorcycles over the past few years, but we haven’t seen much coming from Suzuki—until now. Now, the Japanese manufacturer says it will release its first electric two-wheeler in 2024.

The news comes out of Suzuki’s “Growth Strategy for FY2030” document. This paperwork contains a wide range of information about Suzuki’s plans to handle increasing environmental regulations in the coming decade, including plans for its automotive and marine outboard business.

And, we get this information about the plan for battery bikes:

For small and mid-sized motorcycles, which are used for daily transportation such as commuting to work, school or shopping, we will introduce a battery EV in FY2024. We plan to launch 8 models by FY2030 with a battery EV ratio of 25%. For large motorcycles for leisure purposes, we are considering adopting carbon neutral fuels.

Sounds like Suzuki is planning to do what the other members of The Big Four are doing: start the EV motorcycle program with smaller machines meant to take you around town, not across the country. If you want a full-sized bike with peak performance, don’t expect that to come with battery power. Suzuki appears focused on the commuter market, and while we don’t expect to see all these bikes in North America (or maybe they’re scooters?), we do expect to see at least some of them here in coming years.

However, it is most interesting to see that Suzuki is not giving up the idea of building full-sized bikes—instead, those bikes will apparently run off e-fuels, synthetic alternatives to petroleum products. No surprise there; some of the largest automotive manufacturers in the world are playing around with this technology (find out more about e-fuels here).

The rest of Suzuki’s announcement has several other interesting details. Apparently the company is working on personal mobility equipment aimed at providing transportation to seniors who have surrendered their drivers’ licence—a quick-growing and rarely-acknowledged market as baby boomers age. No doubt these vehicles will make use of the autonomous driving technology as well as EV powertrains that the industry is so focused on right now.

Join the conversation!