Back in late 2024, Royal Enfield finally confirmed a long string of rumors by revealing that it was working on its first electric motorcycle. The Flying Flea C6 promised to put the trademark Royal Enfield affordable and retro spin on a zero-emission motorcycle. Sadly, RE kept quiet about how the bike would actually perform – but now we know. The Flying Flea C6 is going to be one of the best-looking motorcycles that can’t venture very far from your home.
The C6, which is the first of two electric motorcycles from Royal Enfield’s Flying Flea spinoff, is set to launch in India on April 10. Later, Royal Enfield wants to set it loose on the global market, including right here in North America. The C6 doesn’t have to take on the world alone, either. The bike that will eventually accompany the C6 will be the scrambler-style S6.
Royal Enfield has kept the spec sheet under wraps throughout this project, but now, thanks to local publications like Evo India, we know what Royal Enfield put under the false tank. Royal Enfield said that the new motorcycle was going to be an affordable urban ride, and it seems like the company is delivering what it promised, sort of. The Flying Flea sounds like it will be a great urban commuter right until you read about the range.
Royal Enfield Goes High-Tech
The brand that makes its bikes like guns has stayed out of the electric motorcycle segment. Electric motorcycles are huge in places like India, where motorcycles are often used as daily drivers and commutes are well within the range of small battery packs. EVs are affordable out there, too. So, it makes sense that Royal Enfield would eventually stop leaving money on the table.
Finally, after teasing the world about the Flying Flea C6, riders in India have finally gotten to ride the bike. The rest of us get to know what it’s made of.
Royal Enfield says that making an electric motorcycle has been a huge endeavor spanning “many years” and involving more than 200 engineers. The company says it developed mostly everything in-house. That’s to say that the company isn’t just slapping some electric gear on a motorcycle. It’s taking a big swing. Again, that makes sense. Between China and India, millions of electric motorcycles are sold each and every year.
Royal Enfield is bringing back a classic name for its electric motorcycle brand. Here’s what I wrote in 2024:
Simple, tough and resilient, the Royal Enfield Flying Flea, or WD/RE to give it its official title, was deployed as a front line combat machine during the latter stages of the Second World War. An invaluable asset to the elite soldiers of the newly-formed Parachute Regiment, it was parachuted behind enemy lines, carried in assault gliders or ferried to the beaches of Normandy in amphibious landing craft.
Ironically, the Flea was originally a German design. Launched in 1934, the DKW RT100 was one of the most reliable and best selling motorcycles of the 1930s. In 1938, the Nazis pressured DKW’s Dutch distributor, R S Stokvis & Zonen, to fire its Jewish directors or lose its DKW franchise. Rather than bow to this anti-Semitic coercion, the company promptly despatched an RT100 to Royal Enfield in England with a request to reverse-engineer the motorcycle and supply them directly.
Enfield’s chief designer, Ted Pardoe, set to work, replicating the frame and forks but enlarging the engine capacity from 98 to 126cc. The result weighed just 56 kg and its one-and-a-half gallon fuel tank gave a range of around 150 miles while travelling between 35 and 40mph.
One of the most distinctive parts of the Flying Flea was its forks. To cut down on construction costs, the forks were built from pressed steel blades with three rubber bands providing spring force, but no damping. Soldiers bounced around on their Flying Fleas, but the suspension was simple to repair in the field.
Applying the Flying Flea name to this electric motorcycle is sort of genius. This is a small bike that doesn’t make a lot of power and isn’t going to go very far on a charge. It’s not a name that has you expecting something huge and powerful.
Royal Enfield went through the work to make the new Flying Flea C6 more than just a nod to the past. There’s a real girder fork attached to the face of the C6, but the idea has been modernized with forged aluminum and a mudguard that articulates with the twin-shock suspension as it moves through its travel. Forged aluminum also makes up the C6’s overall structure, and hanging from it is a magnesium battery case with fins that look ripped from an air-cooled engine.
As Evo India seems to suggest, the pictures don’t quite illustrate how small the C6 is. From Evo India:
Think three bicycles smushed together to make one motorcycle. The tank or phone charging spot as I now call it, is not much wider than the width of my hand and the seat is reminiscent of a bicycle seat too.
Royal Enfield’s Lightest Motorcycle
The bike is also thoroughly modern – far out for a Royal Enfield – with all LED lighting, five riding modes, a 3.5-inch TFT digital instrument cluster, cornering ABS, and traction control. It even has full-screen Google navigation and a wireless phone charger built into the false tank. Whoa, good for RE.
Back in 2024, Royal Enfield made some weird claims, saying that the onboard OS uses a sort of central nervous system to sense what’s going on in your ride and automatically create some 200,000 ride modes based on it.
Royal Enfield has toned all of that weirdness down, and more or less just says that the OS has a sort of dynamic ride mode function where it can automatically adjust between permutations of more economical, comfort, or power modes.
Oh, and even cooler is the weight. At 273 pounds, the Flying Flea C6 weighs less than any gas motorcycle Royal Enfield has on sale right now. For comparison, the lightest bike RE sells in America is the 399-pound Hunter 350. Honestly, in a world where EVs usually weigh more than gas cars, that news is phenomenal.
Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes. The C6 scoots down the city streets with a 20.6 HP (15.4 kW) and 44.2 lb-ft torque permanent magnet synchronous motor. That’s good for a sprint to 37 mph in 3.7 seconds and for a top speed of 71 mph. Braking is handled by a 260mm dinner plate up front and 220mm disc in the rear. The front is munched on by a two-pot ByBre caliper while a single-piston unit brings up the rear. The fancy girder fork twin-shock suspension up front is complemented with a monoshock in the rear.
The seat also sits 32 inches off the ground. However, since the bike is so narrow, early reviews suggest that it’s like the seat is lower since it’s easier for your legs to reach the ground.
Powering all of this is a little 3.91 kWh lithium battery that’s capable of charging from 20 percent to 80 percent in 65 minutes. Now, it’s time for things to get crazy. Royal Enfield quotes 96 miles of city range, which sounds way too good to be true, even when you factor in the extremely optimistic Indian standardized test cycle.
That Range Figure Is Goofy
As it turns out, Micah Toll of Electrek has done the math on the 3.91 kWh battery, and the range claim is even nuttier than you’d think. From Electrek:
To put that into perspective, that’s roughly 25 Wh per kilometer, or about 41 Wh per mile. Those numbers would place the Flying Flea among the most efficient electric two-wheelers ever made – not just in its class, but across the entire industry. That efficiency would make the 273-lb Flying Flea more efficient than a lot of Class 2 electric bicycles on the road these days.
Now, efficiency is great. Lightweight bikes with skinny tires can absolutely stretch their range. The Flying Flea’s narrow tires, modest power output, and relatively low weight all help here. But even then, this claim sits on the extreme outer edge of what’s physically plausible.
[…]
But ride it the way most people actually will – mixing in acceleration, higher speeds, stop-and-go traffic, maybe even using that 115 km/h or 71 mph top speed – and that number is going to drop fast. Realistically, something closer to 70–100 km (45–60 miles) for CITY range would be far more believable, and even that depends heavily on how it’s ridden. If you’re getting anywhere close to that top speed, your range could literally be in the teens. At that point, the number is so small that it doesn’t really matter whether I’m talking in kilometers or miles anymore.
For a little fun math, if you assume you’re pushing close to the bike’s 15 kW power limit (i.e. riding top speed or up a hill), you’d literally drain the 3.9 kWh battery in less than 15 minutes.
Micah comes to the conclusion that the only way you’re riding this thing 96 miles on a charge is if you go at a speed that’s slower than an e-bike. That’s patently ridiculous, Royal Enfield. So, even in the city, don’t be surprised if you get around half of the advertised range.
The Flying Flea Has Potential
That said, even 60 miles of range isn’t that bad if you never leave the city. Sadly, even though the C6 looks like it would be a riot on a back road, there just wouldn’t be enough range to get there, let alone make it back home.
If reports in India are correct, the Flying Flea C6 is estimated to land for around the equivalent of $2,600 to $3,200 on the local market. That could make the Flying Flea C6 a bit more of a premium option out there. Even if the American market had to pay double the price, it would be pretty reasonable. The low range can make sense if Royal Enfield can nail the price, and the company has been pretty good about hitting great prices lately.
For now, we just have to wait and see. Ignoring the absurd range figure, the Flying Flea C6 seems like it’s a winner if you’re a pure urban rider. It looks stunning, it’s lighter than any other Royal Enfield, and it’ll hopefully land at a tantalizing price. It seems that, like Aaron Judge, Royal Enfield keeps hitting home runs, though we’ll have to see if this one gets over the fences. I can’t wait to see what the C6 looks like on our soil.
Top graphic image: Royal Enfield
For $3k, and with a range even 80% of what they’re claiming, one would find its way into my garage. For $5k I’d have to think about it. It also has real motorcycle wheels, tyres, and brakes, unlike many ebikes out there.
Too much retro design going on: The “tank”, the ribbed “engine block” and the “oil tank”. I guess the battery gubbins fills all three of those areas?
I would just make one very nice looking block, instead of all three. The ribs might be good for battery cooling, so I’ll keep those.
The way the exo skeleton frame is bolted on, and doesn’t go all the way round, is also a bit unsettling to look at, you cant help thinking “will those bolts hold up?”
I know that’s a traditional british way of building motorcycles, bolting the frame to the engine, but I’m more to the german BMW approach, with a frame all round, and then everything inside of that. Like a classic triangle frame bicycle actually.
But nice they gave it some skinny wheels, instead of som big “cool” looking ones, that might help with the range.
My idea of a motorcycle is knowing you’ve got 150 miles if it’s full, no matter how silly you drive it, but I guess they’ve made some marketing analysis showing this will work for their potentional target group?
Don’t worry, the Germans also have used the engine and transmission as stressed members. It was pretty funny to almost completely disassemble my K75 to replace the clutch. About the only things left together was the front fork, itty bitty front sub-frame, and the engine.
Never got one of those, but often thought about it 🙂
It’s cute as heck but this Flea isn’t giving me an itch I need to scratch. Drop a 250CC single in there and give me a buzz.