00:27Welcome to Southern Spain.
00:29Welcome to Cycleworld. Welcome to the launch of the new WN7 from Honda.
00:34Now the guys at Cycleworld was, Chad, while you're in Southern Spain, nip over and see Honda.
00:40See what their WN7 is all about. Because this is not just a hugely important bike for Honda.
00:45For me it's a hugely important bike for the motorcycle industry.
00:49Because this is Honda's first production electric motorcycle.
00:53Now there's been other electric motorcycles around from smaller brands.
00:58And obviously, hands up, you've got the Livewire.
01:00But the majority of bikes are scooters or kind of city commuters.
01:05And yes this is kind of similar to a CB750 Hornet or a CB500.
01:11But it is an actual electric production motorcycle. Built by Honda. The biggest motorcycle manufacturer worldwide.
01:21And in Europe and in the UK, these are going to be available from dealers very shortly.
01:25So you can just walk into your Honda dealer and buy one of these bikes.
01:29In the UK, the price is just under £13,000.
01:32At the moment, the bike's not going to be available in the US.
01:36It's still a decision to be made by Honda.
01:38It's also not available in Japan and some other countries.
01:41Essentially because the infrastructure for the fast charging isn't there.
01:45In the UK and in Europe, we've got an abundance of CCS fast chargers.
01:50The ones you see charging Teslas.
01:52Which means this will go from 20% to 80% on one of those fast chargers in 30 minutes.
01:58Which is incredibly quick that no other motorcycle has.
02:01Yes, you've still got the kind of charge at home AC.
02:05Zero to 100% but that will take five and a half hours.
02:09And if you've got the kind of plug-in fast charger at home with the extension cable.
02:13You're looking at two and a half to under three hours.
02:16But essentially this bike's been made and designed to work with those CCS2 fast chargers.
02:22What we wanted to do at Cycle Raw was not only see this new motorcycle.
02:26But test ride it and kind of run through what to expect.
02:29If this bike comes to the US.
02:32First of all I guess we've got to look at the looks and the styling.
02:35Which to me I think is really really high end.
02:38It's just got such a beautiful finish to it.
02:41And it looks very different to a normal conventional motorcycle.
02:44It's really really narrow because they're not constrained by exhaust and catalytic converters and radiators and an inline four cylinder
02:54engine or any of that.
02:56So they can make the bike as slim or as narrow and as stylish as they want it to be.
02:59It looks like one continuous structure.
03:01But I think it also looks like a Honda with a single sided swinging arm that looks not too similar
03:06from like the bigger Hornet.
03:08The switch gear is again familiar Honda.
03:11So is the clocks.
03:14To start it, it's keyless.
03:15We've got a little, I think it's off a fire blade, starter button on the left hand side.
03:20Which is just press the button, hold the brake and the dash comes alive and we're ready to go.
03:24We've got four different rider modes to choose from which is sport, standard and wet and like an eco.
03:29That regenerates the batteries more to give you more longevity, to give you more range.
03:34Honda are quoting around 140 kilometres for range.
03:37Today we've ridden it fairly hard and we've got 100 kilometres.
03:41Which is about 60 miles or maybe a little bit more depending on how and where you ride.
03:46If you're riding in San Francisco up and down steep hills then obviously the battery will be used less.
03:51Temperature and etc will affect battery life and range.
03:55And obviously the weight of the rider if you're two up etc.
03:58But generally speaking we rode it reasonably hard today up in the hills in southern Spain and we got a
04:03range of 100 kilometres.
04:05Within those modes that changes the characteristics of the drive.
04:10Because we're not all about engine characteristics because we can't compare it to a V2 or a V4.
04:16So essentially it's the throttle response.
04:18It also changes the traction control and it also changes the regen or as I like to call it just
04:24engine braking to put it very simply.
04:27If you're in sports mode and you close the throttle there's very little engine braking.
04:31It's like almost being in neutral or being on a two-stroke so you roll into the corner or you
04:35roll down the hill and you've got very little engine braking.
04:38If you're in Eco you've got quite a lot of engine braking and it almost feels like it's coming down
04:43a gear like you would if you were going down a steep descent on an enduro bike and you wanted
04:47to use engine braking rather than conventional braking.
04:50And again you can play with that and trim it as you ride.
04:53So on the way back we had some downhill sections where I was adding a little bit more engine braking
04:59so I didn't have to use the brakes but then was putting recharge back into the battery.
05:04And when I was having more fun I reduced the engine braking so it was more like a two-stroke
05:08so I could carry it into the corners and have a little bit more fun.
05:12In terms of chassis it's frameless so we've got a front frame, the back frame and essentially the battery is
05:19the frame so it's a frameless bike.
05:21We've got belt driven which is unusual and I think first for Honda.
05:26The rate, trail, wheelbase and things like that are very similar to the Honda CB750 because other smaller manufacturers have
05:33kind of had to develop their chassis around the battery where Honda have gone,
05:39well we do pretty well in racing, we've been building bikes for nearly 80 years and that CB750 Hornet works
05:47so we'll just use kind of those dimensions.
05:49Pretty simple and straightforward really.
05:52The wheelbase is a little bit longer, we've got a 150 section rear tyre just to keep it narrow and
05:57I think to enable it to steer a little bit easier.
06:00Because the weight is really low in the chassis which gives it a really nice balance around town, that does
06:06hinder it a little bit when you get up to high speed.
06:09Just for steering so that narrow tyre and wider bards enables you to steer the bike with a little bit
06:13more ease.
06:14Speed is limited so what they quote is 129 kilometres an hour.
06:19A few occasions on unmarked roads with no speed limit we saw 130, 133, 135.
06:250-60 times are impressive so 0-50 kilometres is similar to a CB500.
06:330-60 mile an hour or 0-100 kilometre an hour is a little bit quicker than a CB500 and
06:38obviously there's no gears, it's instant drive and instant torque.
06:41But what for me that really stands out on this electric motorcycle from Honda is the feel and the build
06:47quality and how it feels like a motorcycle but happens to be electric.
06:52A lot of other bikes in this class you feel noises and you feel like it's electric because you can
06:58hear the chain hitting the swinging arm or you can hear the bodywork creaking or you can hear the pads
07:03grabbing the discs and all the noises and all the kind of things you don't want to hear that's normally
07:08hidden by the noise of a petrol bike comes really evident when you ride other bikes in this category.
07:14But this doesn't, it's absolutely silent. You can't hear the motor, there's no whizzy noise or hizzy noise, it's perfectly
07:22silent and it gives you this kind of eerie kind of freedom and feel to enjoy the environment and weirdly
07:29talk to other people and listen to traffic and hear music from other cars.
07:33And out on the road it really feels like a motorcycle, the suspension works really well. 217 kilograms quoted which
07:41is about the same weight as a fully fuelled middleweight naked and the suspension works really well, the brakes are
07:49really strong, the traction control works really well with that instant torque on these slippery white lights, it's a really
07:56impressive bike.
07:58I personally like the looks, I really like the styling and I think at £13,000 in the UK it's
08:04about on par with the competition like Xero and Livewire which are a little bit more but it's a little
08:10bit strange in the UK and at Europe at the moment because everybody's discounting prices on electric bikes left, right
08:16and centre.
08:16It'd be interesting to see if the bike eventually comes to the US, I think the only thing holding it
08:22back is the infrastructure of the fast chargers.
08:24The times when I've been in America in LA and San Francisco and in California there seems to be an
08:29abundance of them so it would possibly work in California or maybe in New York but would it work when
08:35you're in the middle of Texas and your ranges are only 60 miles, maybe not so.
08:40But we wanted to have the opportunity here at Cycle World just to have a quick look over the bike,
08:45see what you think and take it for a quick test ride and it's been a really enjoyable experience.
08:50I'm kind of embracing these electric bikes, I love to see all this new technology and new way of riding
08:56and using the engine braking rather than using the brakes having no clutch and no gear selector and no heat
09:02and no noise.
09:04It's an unusual experience but an enjoyable one.
09:07Hopefully we'll get this bike in the US and the guys at Cycle World can put some more miles on
09:11it, what's it going to be like in different temperatures, what's it going to be like in the real world
09:15commuting rather than riding really fast in the hills and what will it be like against the other electric competition.
09:22Hope you've enjoyed our quick review of the bike, hopefully you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed riding it
09:26and it'd be interesting to see your comments below whether it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
09:31See you in this video!
