The electric revolution is coming to the motorcycle industry, albeit a tad slower than in the automotive world. Indian Motorcycle is the latest maker to start working on an electric bike, but that’s the only piece of good news for now.
Indian has filed a worldwide trademark application for “EFTR,” with the filing specifically saying the name refers to “electric motorcycles and structural parts therefor,” according to Motorcycle.com. Based on this alone, the conclusion can be only one: Indian is working on an electric version of their popular FTR 1200 bike and it will be made commercially available worldwide.
This means, according to the same media outlet, that the two versions of the bike will retain some common elements but, other than that, not much is known. EFTR will be Indian’s first-ever electric bike and the second from Polaris Industries, which now owns Indian. Polaris released the 2016 Victory Empulse TT and then killed it off some months later, to focus on Indian.
Also in 2016, then vice-present of motorcycles Steve Menneto said that they wanted to release an electric Indian within five years. Simple math would put a possible reveal for the EFTR in 2021, which would be incredibly fast, all things considered.
The same Menneto said they aimed for a 225 km (140 miles) of range for the Indian e-bike. If this holds up, it would mean an improvement over both the LiveWire from Harley-Davidson and the Zero SR/F, which will ultimately become its direct competitors.
This being a patent filing, it doesn’t include any dates for an estimated delivery or any other details. Then again, confirmation of the project alone should suffice for the time being: Indian is breaking into the EV market.
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