TRIUMPH TE-1 UNVEILED PROTOTYPE
If you speak to anyone in the bike trade about electric motorcycles, the answer is always the same – we need one of the big firms to launch one that’s properly engineered. The current (yes!) offerings from firms like Zero, Energica, and Harley-Davidson LiveWire are very good for what they are but remain a bit of a niche prospect for much of the market. And while the bottom of said market is rammed with budget Chinese-made mopeds and scooters, there’s still no such thing as a genuinely mainstream electric bike, in the way you have now in the car sector.
That’s got to change soon – and this is perhaps one of the earliest signs: a real-world, running prototype of Triumph’s TE-1 electric bike. The Hinckley firm released drawings of the planned machine last year, but this is the first time we’ve seen it as a full-engineered test mule. And it looks pretty impressive.
It’s clearly a Triumph, with classic looks borrowed from the Speed Triple: aluminium frame, single-sided swingarm, dual headlamps. But under the bodywork lies, of course, a very different powerplant. There’s no three-cylinder fuel-injected 12v DOHC petrol-powered internal combustion
