The Japanese Big Four join forces on electric motorcycles

Bruno Gomes

April 11, 2019

With the goal of creating a world standard for electric motorcycles, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki accepted to join forces.

Electric motorcycles are taking over the world, and if you think that this is just talking, then the news coming in from Japan, specifically from The Japan News and Electrek, prove that the change is being taken very seriously by some of the biggest names in the motorcycle world.

According to reports published by The Japan News and Electrek, there’s a new consortium working to study, develop, and then implement a new world standard for electric motorcycles.

This consortium is born from the will of what we call the Japanese “Big Four”.

Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, the four Japanese manufacturers, recently agreed to join forces and work on homogenized battery, charging, infrastructure, and other items into reality so that there can be interoperability between the brands and less confusion in the marketplace.

With the Big Four accounting for so many motorcycles sold worldwide, approximately half of the motorcycles sold per year, this is great news to all those motorcyclists that expect the electric motorcycles to get a bigger penetration on the global market.

Of course, the creation of this Japanese consortium for electric motorcycles doesn’t happen by chance.

For example, Honda just released their electric motocross bike the CR Electric Prototype, and the brand is also involved with Mugen on the development of their electric superbike used at the TT Zero race at the Isle of Man.

Yamaha is also deep into electric motorcycles. The Iwata factory already revealed their electric models for on-road use, off-road use, and their latest project is the trials EV bike that proved to be very successful at the world stage, winning the first ever electric Trials championship.

We don’t know exactly what Suzuki or Kawasaki are working on in terms of EV motorcycles, but for sure these brands are also developing their own concepts.

It remains to be seen if this Japanese consortium is successful, but considering it’s the Big Four that decided to create it and collaborate with one another, we expect to see some results of their work soon rather than later. Will any European manufacturers like BMW Motorrrad, Ducati, KTM or any other join the consortium or decide to go their own way?