First, a caveat. This bike is really targeted to those jurisdictions that have zero emission standards being introduced in the ‘near future’. This essentially means Europe, as in North America, no such plans exist for another decade.
I’ve had an interest in hybrid vehicles for awhile, essentially because of global warming and the inevitability of constraints that will be imposed on ICE engines, unless of course they actually burn hydrogen or some other more exotic fuel source. My interest hasn’t really been about me buying one. Undoubtedly, even if I do still ride in 2035, I’ll be 83 years old. Not that riding will necessarily be impossible, seeing as I met a 96 year old rider on a sport touring bike two years ago atop a mountain in Wyoming. However, I digress.
Hybrid motocycles may well be the answer for Europe, since a number of European cities are imposing zero emission zones for urban areas. Either you’ll have to have an electric bike, some other form of zero emission motorcycle or a ‘strong hybrid’, as its known, which allows a motorcycle to run either on electric or on its internal combustion engine as options.
Which brings us to the Ninja 7 Hybrid, now available in Europe. I contacted Kawasaki today and tried to find out if a Ninja 7 Hybrid would be available for a test ride come spring. It appears that due to demand, the Ninja 7 Hybrid may not be coming to Canada at all. The other electric motorcycle offerings will be, but that’s for another article.
Then Ninja 7 Hybrid is, at the moment, a one of a kind motorcycle. Kawasaki is banking on a carbon neutral future, including both electric and hydrogen. Kawasaki has been quite open about the fact that it does not plan to eliminate ICE motorcycles.
The Ninja 7 Hybrid is aimed at the mid-size motorcyce buyer, specifically the 650 motorcycle buyer. The 451cc parallel twin, straight from the Eliminator has a ‘tweaked’ engine design and revs higher than the eliminator, to a red line of 11,000 rpm. When running stricktly on gas, the engine puts out 58 horsepower. With electronic shifting, and no clutch, when combined with the 9kW power surge from the electric motor, fed by a 1.3 kWh, 48V lithium battery puts out 68.5 horsepower, which is more horsepower than the 650cc Kawasaki.
As Troy Siahaan states in Motorcycle.com of Oct. 31st, 2023,
Leave a Reply