After peeling back the curtain on an electrified version of its iconic Vespa at EICMA last year, Piaggo has now revealed a few key specs for the 2017 event. The silent and stylish Vespa Elettrica leads the storied scooter brand's charge into electric mobility, and offers some of the connected bells and whistles that we've come to expect from vehicles in that space.
Vespas have been roaming streets around the world for more than 70 years, and there's hardly a more recognizable name when it comes to step-through two-wheelers. Indeed, more than 18 million have been sold in that time, but each and every one of them has been driven by gasoline engines that pump out pollution and noise.
Electric scooters promise to cut down on these negative aspects by offering city folk a greener and quieter way of getting around town. We've seen quite a few companies look to tap into, and even facilitate, this shift toward more sustainable urban transport, including oddball scooters shaped like a box and others that fold up so you can wheel them right into the office. And there are scooter-sharing schemes like Gogoro, which has recently expanded from Asia into Europe.
Piaggo is sticking with what it knows with its entry to the electric scooter market. The Vespa Elettrica maintains the iconic shape of its fossil-fueled predecessors, and is finished in chrome grey with one of seven color accents. It will be powered by an electric motor with a modest peak power of 4 kW, which Piaggio reckons will give it a performance edge over a traditional 50cc scooter. You could think of it like a moped on steroids – or at least a moped that's had a coffee.
Piaggio says the Vespa Elettrica will be completely silent, and is guaranteeing an electric-only range of 100 km (62 mi), though that can be doubled with the addition of a generator in the hybrid "X" version. Onboard is a color TFT display that hooks smartphones up with the Piaggio Multimedia Platform to serve as a virtual dashboard, collect trip data, keep tabs on traction control and navigate to nearby gas stations.
There is still no word on pricing for the Vespa Elettrica, but Piaggio does say it will be distributed across the world in 2018. It will be on show at EICMA until November 12.
Source: Piaggio
I have one reservation and that, oddly enough, is the silence. While it's wonderful to get rid of some traffic noise, I have a serious fear for safety. Scooters and motor cycles are often heard before they are seen giving other road users warning of their approach. Without this, I fear there could be more accidents and would urge Piaggio to consider adding some kind of artificial noise -purely in the interest of saving lives.
So, there’s two colossal problems I see, really.
Having an onboard charger is fine, but these things are only useful in cities. Cities, which have a lot of apartment dwellers. Apartment dwellers, who don’t have garages or outside outlets. Removable batteries would’ve been a very, very good idea – they allow the owner to remove the batteries, carry them inside, and charge them in their apartment. Gogoro did it, Honda’s doing it with the PCX Electric (which I think will also be in this class), GenZe did it (and their scooter is also in this class). This is compounded by the 4 hour charge time – with faster charging, occasionally plugging it in at a public charger would have been fine, but…
And then, a version with a gasoline engine? While it may actually be useful because of the slow charging and lack of swappable batteries, ultimately, something that’s only useful for going around a city, the claimed 62 miles of range is plenty (assuming it’ll actually get it), the engine is utterly silly.
Honda PCX 150 is NOT in the 50cc class; vastly better than that! So the electric version must have similar or better performance, if not as long a range. Must say the electric version looks as good as my PCX150, maybe even better...
and yet you claim the much larger PCX will have only 0.98kW? I am tempted to say- rubbish! But we shall wait & see.