Curtiss Zeus: the world’s first E-twin motorcycle

Bruno Gomes

May 16, 2018

The Curtiss Zeus electric motorcycle was unveiled at the Quail Motorcycle Gathering

When Confederate Motorcycles decided to change its name to Curtiss Motorcycles, in honor of Glen Curtiss, the inventor of the V-twin engine, the Alabama based company also pledged to work on more environmentally friendly motorcycles.

So, it was clear that after the last batch of the Combat P51 to roll out of the assembly line, the company would start working on an electric motorcycle and completely abandon their work on internal combustion engines (ICE) motorcycles.

Now the time has come for Curtiss to show us what they’ve been working on for the past few years, and the result of that work is the world’s first E-twin motorcycle called Zeus.

Zeus was shown at the Quail Motorcycle Gathering last weekend, still as a prototype and not as a final production version. We knew that Curtiss would be showing their latest creation at the show, but we thought it would be the Hercules, so maybe Curtiss still has something else hidden and getting ready to be shown in the future.

As for Zeus, the design takes on the shapes we’ve learned to love from Confederate motorcycles, an industrial look, with lots of machined parts made in aluminium that create a big visual impact.

But because Zeus is still in prototype form, there’s not much information available about the bike.

What we know is that Curtiss worked with Zero Motorcycles to source two electric engines, join them to create that E-twin unit, and get Zeus to reach a maximum power of 170 hp and a monstrous 393 Nm of torque! The motors work on a common output shaft.

All this power comes from a 14 kWh battery pack, but we still don’t know what will be the range of this electric bike.

Curtiss Motorcycles installed Beringer double rotor brakes up front, suspension comes from Race Tech shocks (both front and rear), while the wheels are closed disc type made in carbon fiber. For those who like technology, the dashboard is an iPad and all the lighting system is LED.

There’s no word on pricing yet, but if we had to guess, we would say that this is a motorcycle, that like most of the old Confederate bikes, will only be affordable to Hollywood stars.

Curtiss Motorcycles plans to have the Zeus on sale by 2020.

Let’s just hope they can redesign that seat unit, because like it is now, it doesn’t look so comfortable at all. And we really would love to have a go at this electric behemoth!