In China several cities have banned the issuance of new gas motorcycle licenses. Over time in these cities gas motorcycles will dwindle, as will the negative effect of their emissions. The motorcycle companies see this and are interested in switching to electrically powered motorcycles and scooters. Today Zongshen PEM Power Systems Inc. announced its new line of electric motorcycles, under the "Toronto" label. The plan is to establish a Chinese distribution network in 2010, and in 2011 to move on to distributing the Toronto bikes in South East Asia.
The announcement was made at the Chongqing headquarters of the Zongshen Industrial Group in a meeting attended by over 200 dealers, resulting in their first orders.
The bike is targeted to compete against 120cc gas bikes, over 8 million of which are sold every year. To be competitive in this market the bike has been fitted with lead acid batteries rather than the costly lithium batteries. With performance comparable to 120cc bikes this is much smaller than we're accustomed to in the West. The press release hints of, in the future, building a more powerful bike with lithium batteries for Western markets. In the meantime China is rapidly growing, rapidly modernizing, and many see it as extremely important that China not adopt a fully fossil fuel driven transportation system. Instead China has many projects to develop electric vehicles at all levels of their transportation system, and this motorcycle from Zongshen is just one example.
Careful readers might recall reports from last January and February concerning a possible joint venture between Zongshen and Mission Motors. Mission Motors is a San Francisco based startup designing an ultra high performance electric motorcycle. In 2009 their prototype was raced on the Isle of Man and later set a land speed record for electric motorcycles which was broken this year. In January news surfaced that Mission and Zongshen was in talks to form a joint venture for joint development of an electric motorcycle for the Chinese market. In response to a query, Mission Motors stated that they "did not participate in the development of those vehicles" and that joint venture talks are still ongoing. Rumors have it that Mission does have a large announcement coming soon, and their spokesperson said to keep an eye on their blog for more news.
There are a couple sketchy articles reporting that Zongshen and the Italian scooter maker Piaggio are in talks for collaboration, possibly for an electric or hybrid motorcycle.
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Zongshen PEM Power Systems Inc. Announces Launch of Electric Motorcycle in China
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