Yamaha becomes the latest major manufacturer to pursue electric sales

Yamaha have planted their flag in the move to electric with the unveiling of two scooters, one pedelec (which is a bit of a licence weirdo for us) plus three electric bicycles.

This isn’t Yamaha’s first giant leap towards electrification: they unveiled the TY-E electric trials bike in 2018, then they partnered with Taiwanese manufacturer Gogoro three years ago but it is their first serious move towards production electric bikes.

Like most big manufacturers heading into electric, Yamaha think the immediate future is people buzzing around town rather than heading for the hills.

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“The concept of mobility has continuously evolved over the years, and consequently our cities and infrastructures have adapted to these changes,” says Eric de Seynes, Yamaha’s European President. “However, one thing that has remained the same over the decades is the universal desire and need for personal mobility that gives a real sense of freedom.”

Both scooters Yamaha have shown are developments of their two concepts from the Tokyo Motor Show in 2019.

The first one we’ll see fully in just a couple of weeks is the NEO’s (nope, we’ve no idea about the apostrophe either…), which is based on the E02 concept. The NEO’s is designed to be a 50cc equivalent with removable batteries aimed at commuters.

The original concept used similar running gear to the Gogoro Smartscooter 2, which has a pair of 9kg batteries under the seat, giving it a 60-mile range.

The Smartscooter 2 weighs just 112kg, with an 8.5bhp electric motor that gives it a top speed of 58mph. The genius of the Smartscooter is that Gogoro have installed a huge network of battery swapping stations across Taiwan, so you never charge the bike up yourself, you just swap the batteries and carry on.

You pay Gogoro a monthly fee, a bit like having a mobile phone with a data plan. Yamaha say they plan to unveil the NEO’s fully before the end of the month and it will arrive in dealers this spring.

Yamaha also revealed that there will be a new version of the 125cc equivalent E01 scooter but it’s a little way off yet.

Yamaha’s next step towards bringing that to production will be to set up a ride sharing hub in a major European city – think Milan or Paris where bikes aren’t pinched for fun rather than London.

Yamaha say they’ll run that experiment for two to three years and after that, they’ll assemble all their learnings into a production bike.

The big question is how it will work because the E01 patents show a large fixed battery that’s charged in the bike, rather than swappable batteries like the NEO’s. That would require more infrastructure to sort, which we’re also lagging behind with here.

If Yamaha can crack it, especially with Gogoro’s help, it could be the key to unlocking electric bike infrastructure and help prolong the life of large capacity petrol bikes.

Yamaha scooter highlights

• NEO’s scooter revealed
• Battery-swapping tech
• Aimed ay urban riders
• More models to follow