Royal Enfield Flying Flea EV
Royal Enfield enters the EV market with the Flying Flea
Lucy England
The much vaunted Flying Flea C6 motorcycle looks likely to grace the market in the spring of next year, followed by a scrambler style Flying Flea S6.
There aren’t a whole lot of technical deets about these machines out there as yet, but Royal Enfield are making some interesting moves like investing in Stark Future, a Spanish company based in Barcelona manufacturing electric off road bikes, so that may be a clue.
Royal Enfield has also got involved in an EV manufacturing plant in Chennai in India, where all aspects of the new electric motorcycles are being developed in house by Royal Enfield engineers.
The Flying Flea gets its moniker from the 1940s Royal Enfield flying flea which was designed to be parachuted onto the front line as a despatch bike to carry messages between troops who might be out of radio contact while in combat.
It was designed as a very robust but lightweight machine, tough enough and light enough to be dropped from a plane.
The actual parachute landing didn’t happen too often though, as the planes were getting damaged on impact so eventually they were loaded into troop carrying gliders, four at a time and secured by a harness which turned out to be better. Anyway enough of the history, it is just interesting that Royal Enfield has used this versatile, tough, light little machine as the springboard for the new electric bike design, and very handsome it is too.
Royal Enfield CEO B. Govindarajan said:
“Flying Flea combines distinctive style, city-focused practicality, and cutting-edge technology,” “This is the start of a fresh, sustainable ride for us and offers the world an elegant, effective, and sustainable everyday transportation.”
The first model to go into production is the Flying Flea C6 which is directly inspired by the WW2 era version of the despatch bike. It has a forged aluminium girder fork which is a key aspect of this classic inspired style, a forged aluminium frame and a magnesium battery case. The C6 will be equipped with a round touchscreen cluster. The central vehicle control unit is said to offer more than 200,000 ride nmode combinations. The brand also claims that the new EV will have lean sensitive ABS and cruise control.
Apart from that we shall have to wait and see what actually arrives from Royal Enfield but it’s interesting to know that something is in the pipeline.
Do you like the look of this new machine? Any thoughts? [email protected] or let us know on Facebook.
EN
TH
UK