The world of electric motorcycles has been growing rapidly over the years, and big names like Harley-Davidson and BMW have been quick to offer their own takes on electrified two-wheeled transportation. Curiously missing from the market has been perhaps the most famous name in motorcycles, Honda. That is finally changing as Team Red has announced what it calls its first-ever electric motorcycle, the all-new Honda WN7. This battery bike is equal parts amazing and confusing, with great tech, but specs that are worse than what could be the bike’s competition.
Honda just pulled the wraps off the production version of the WN7 at EICMA 2025, the exposition in Milan where motorcycle manufacturers show off their latest and greatest. The concept version of the Honda WN7 was unveiled last year at the Milan show as the EV Fun, and the production version that Honda is showing off right now looks just like the concept, which is awesome. Honda also says that sales will kick off next year, too.
It looks like it was smart for Honda to wait to introduce its first electric motorcycle, because, based on what Honda has revealed about the WN7, the powersports giant will not make the same mistakes that brands like Harley-Davidson did years ago. But at the same time, the WN7 is a confusing machine. It will be slower, heavier, and offer less range than other electric motorcycles on the market.
Honda’s Been Talking Electric For Years
Now, some of you might be wondering about Honda’s claim about the WN7 being its first-ever electric motorcycle. It’s technically correct about this, but Honda does have other electric two-wheeled vehicles. Over in China, the Honda Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd. sells the Honda Cub e:, the Dax e:, and the ZOOMER e:. Here’s the Dax for your cuteness overload:
That sure looks like a motorcycle, but if you look closely, all of these minibikes have pedals and low-power electric motors, and are thus classified as ebikes or mopeds.
Then there’s the Wuyang-Honda WH8000D, which is a real electric motorcycle. Check it out:
The deal with this one is that it’s not directly a Honda product, and was made within Honda’s Chinese joint venture Wuyang-Honda. Otherwise, Honda has also slapped its name on some electric commuter scooters. So, this really is Honda’s first electric production motorcycle with just its own badge on it, and this has been a long time coming.
Honda has been promising to build a production electric motorcycle of some kind for more than 16 years now. The company unveiled an electric moped in 2004 and said that it was going to enter production, but that didn’t happen. Then, in 2009, Honda said it would have a production electric motorcycle ready to roll by 2010. Again, the deadline passed without any Honda electric bike. In 2011, Honda then teased the delicious RC-E concept (below), which showed that electric motorcycles could look as cool as a 1960s race bike. That one hasn’t gone anywhere, either.
So the fact that Honda hasn’t revealed just another concept, and you’re looking at a real production bike? That’s huge!
A Motorcycle For Urban Nature
Honda’s big idea for the WN7 is that it’s Team Red’s first motorcycle that really allows you to enjoy nature:
The grand concept of the WN7 is “Be the Wind, Listen to the Sounds of Nature, and Feel the Earth.” As an electric motorcycle, the WN7 allows riders to hear sounds that they could not hear with an internal combustion engine (ICE) motorcycle, like the voices of people while riding through the city or the sound of water splashing when stepping in a puddle. Being electric means it can deliver a satisfying feeling of acceleration and deceleration, offering a quiet and smooth riding experience with minimal vibration and noise. It also produces no exhaust emissions, enabling it to become a presence in harmony with nature.
One of the greatest parts of electric motorcycles is that you can hear so much of the world that is normally drowned out by the sound of your motorcycle’s engine. Take an electric motorcycle on a trail and you’ll hear your tires crunch leaves, and Honda isn’t lying when it says you could hear people talking. It’s a sense of tranquility on wheels that is only possible without an internal combustion engine.
Honda says the WN7 is built for young people who ride in cities. So, the bike was designed with an emphasis on lightness and maneuverability. To achieve this goal, Honda has decided to use a “frameless” design for this motorcycle. Instead of a frame, the motorcycle has a gigantic aluminum battery box. The motorcycle’s head tube, swingarm, and seat subframe are attached directly to the battery box. Honda says it also achieved lightness through strategic use of high-tensile steel and aluminum elsewhere in the motorcycle’s structure.
While sort of weird, we’ve seen designs like this before, most notably in Can-Am’s new electric motorcycles, which also use their batteries as the main “frame” structure.
The battery in the box is a 9.3 kWh lithium-ion unit. Honda says it’s good for 87 miles of range. It’s not said what kind of riding will net that 87 miles of range, but other motorcycles with around 10 kWh of capacity can do around 100 miles of urban riding. I expect that is the case here, too.
A very cool feature of the WN7 is its ability to charge from three sources: a wall charger, a Level 2 charger, or a CCS2 fast charger. This is notable because there are electric motorcycles on the market right now that either cannot fast charge or cannot take advantage of Level 2. Honda says that, when hooked up to a fast charger, the WN7 will go from a 20 percent charge to an 80 percent charge in only 30 minutes. A full charge from completely dead to full is said to take 2.4 hours on a 6kVA home charger. Honda has not advertised Level 1 charging times.
That juice is routed to a water-cooled motor making 67 HP and 73.8 lb-ft of torque. Honda describes this motor as having the horsepower of a 600cc engine, but the torque of a liter engine, which is interesting. Power reaches the rear wheel through a belt drive for quietness and ease of maintenance.
All of this is wrapped in a package that weighs 478 pounds, ready to ride. In terms of technology, Honda says the new bike will have regenerative braking, four riding modes, a programmable speed limiter, and a low-speed walking mode to help you park the bike in a tight space. None of the tech features are particularly mind-blowing, as these are pretty much the default features you get with any electric motorcycle today.
Honda also says that the WN7 is a preview of its future electric motorcycles. The design language seen here – including the Duracell battery-like paint scheme – is supposed to be slapped on Honda’s next electric efforts. So, I hope you like this look, because Honda wants to keep using it.
Honda says that the WN7 will be built at its Kumamoto Factory and will go on sale in Europe first in 2026. Then, the company will launch the WN7 in other markets. Honda has given no indication of what those other markets will be. The WN7’s price is slated to be £12,999 in the United Kingdom. Based on a straight conversion, that’s $17,105. Of course, local pricing is based on far more than exchange rates, so who knows what it could cost here in America, assuming it ever comes here.
Who Is This For?
Alright, so here’s what’s confusing me. Honda has done a lot of great stuff here. The company has recognized that urban landscapes are the realm of the electric motorcycle. Today’s battery technology is just too heavy and too expensive to make a long-range electric motorcycle that a lot of people can afford to buy. So, Honda is making an urban bike.
It’s also smart for Honda to initially launch this motorcycle in Europe, where urban electric motorcycles enjoy a great following. Our European friends often have electric motorcycle-friendly commutes and high gas prices that make EVs more attractive.
Honda’s engineering also appears to be pretty awesome here. As I’ve written about before, Honda loves big engineering projects like this, and the company has come up with some really fascinating stuff over the years. Right now, Honda is also working on a V3 with an electric compressor!
But the WN7’s specs have me scratching my head.
In the UK, you can buy a LiveWire S2 Del Mar for £8,799. The Del Mar has a range of 113 miles, a 10.5 kWh battery, 436 pounds of weight, and a motor good for 84 HP and 194 lb-ft of torque. In other words, for more than £4,000 less, you can get a bike that’s faster, with better range, with less weight, that’s still from a well-known company. LiveWire’s entire S2 lineup in the UK is much cheaper than the Honda, and I suspect it would be a similar story here in America. Remember, LiveWire just dropped its prices, and here in America, you can get one for only $9,999 now. The LiveWire S2s are also middleweights just like the Honda WN7, so I think it’s a valid comparison.
This doesn’t even mention other potential competitors. In the UK, you can get a new Zero DS for £12,900. Sure, the DS weighs 526 pounds, but it has about the same power output and a whopping 162 miles of city range.
So, I’m not entirely sure who the buyer for the Honda would be. Existing bikes on the market offer more for less money or offer more for the same money. There’s no doubt that, as a piece of engineering, the WN7 is excellent. But I am curious about how many buyers Honda will get at this price.
Either way, it’s very cool that Honda has finally jumped into the electric motorcycle market. Team Red has been promising a production electric motorcycle for years, and it’s finally here. Regardless of the price, that’s still a great milestone, and hopefully will only be just the beginning.
Top graphic image: Honda
If only it could be called the “E. Honda”
Using the battery as a stressed member is so clever – want more range, make a longer bike! Seriously though I can imagine a lot of possibilities with a hand full of versions of each module – cafe front with the back of a cruiser or sportbike butt with an enduro front, etc etc. Truly take advantage of one of electric’s great potentials
edit forgot an s
Honest answer here, and not just venting about range, it’s ugly.
I don’t like the look of the brick-on-wheels, and I don’t like the visor-slit headlamp styling. But I don’t like the Livewire either.
The RC-E concept, however, I really like. Reminds me of an old 500GP bike in a good way.
I like what Honda is trying I think they are on the right path. Urban yes, youth sure, premium price not so sure. But that’s one of the big issues with electric motorcycles.They fall into the price battery range trap. The batteries can be made light enough to swap easily but you are probably tied to air-cooled batteries or if you did liquid cooled it’s more expensive and tied to dcfc that also aren’t exactly designed with motorcycle in mind. If you could somehow have both like catl- nio are doing with cars maybe. Some kind of standardization is probably needed or at least some kind of network that caters to e motorcycles. Big two wheel markets are going to battery swaps. That has to be at least part of the answer. If they some kind of solution for charging and or battery swaps and are able to reduce costs a lot of the kids riding these electric dirt bikes and bikes will probably go for the e.motos in a few years.
I’d need 90 miles of range at 85mph to commute. Getting there. I get twice that on my current motorcycle, and it conveniently charges to 100% in 1 minute at a gas pump.
That’s a hell of a commute. Now I know motorcycles are primarily leisure vehicles and it makes perfect sense to want to have more than 100 miles of range for a joyride, but if you really are regularly commuting 90 miles at 90mph… That sounds like you could save all the money you spend on speeding tickets in a year and just move closer to where you’re trying to get to.
“ Honda describes this motor as having the horsepower of a 600cc engine, ”
Weird, my 600cc Honda makes 120bhp. Costs less than this brand new.
I don’t want to be negative about EV bikes, but they’re so much worse than electric cars.
The claim itself is just weird. It’s like Honda can’t figure out if it wants to say it’s like a 600 or a 1000, but it’s sort of neither, anyway.
78ftlb is significant right off-idle. I could imagine this would feel much faster than a CBR1000RRSP
The 65hp, however, is pretty light. But tracks similar as a non-sport 600 bike.
A CBR1000 is wheelie limited to well above legal speeds, I don’t know how you’d use more torque than that.
Is Honda betting that consumers would want an operating company behind their product in 2 years rather than a claim against a bankruptcy estate? That makes up for the lower specs?
I think we just found the new Autopian motto!
I would take that awful rear fender license plate thingy off the second I brought it home.
“Tail Tidy” aka “fender eliminator” kits are extremely common, since sometime around the year 2000 motorcycle manufacturers apparently decided that bikes didn’t need petty things like fenders or passenger seats anymore, but the license plate/blinkers are mandated to be in a certain spot, so they have to tack on these gigantic ugly diving board things. While technically illegal, I routinely see brand new bikes on showroom floors with a “tail tidy” preinstalled (of course for an upcharge that’s like 5x what it actually cost).
The quite sounds of nature on urban city streets. OK!
Oh, that Dax e: is adorbs! 😉