Evoke Motorcycles has an impressive offering of moderately priced electric motorcycles. Now, the electric motorcycle startup is innovating even further with new, extremely fast charging batteries.

Evoke Motorcycles testing new batteries

Beijing-based Evoke Motorcycles has just announced that they are testing a newer, 2nd generation battery for their vehicles.

The new electric motorcycle batteries are designed to allow for ultra-fast charging. The company claims that the batteries can be recharged from 0-80% in just 15 minutes.

Evoke’s current generation of batteries recharge with a wall charger in either 8 hours on 110V or 4 hours on 220V.

The new batteries will be designed to recharge much faster using a Level 2 charger.

Evoke’s 2nd generation batteries are designed as a modular system intended for different applications. The company says they can be daisy-chained together for use in other small and medium-size electric vehicles.

The batteries incorporate new advancements, including a proprietary active thermal management system. The design includes a combination of software and hardware that integrate to precisely control the temperature range of the Li-ion 18650 battery cells. This thermal management should greatly increase the life of Evoke’s battery packs.

According to Chris Riether, VP of Engineering at Evoke Motorcycles:

“When we started the design process, we quickly understood that cell surface cooling wasn’t enough to effectively bring down temperatures to a safe range while ultra-fast charging. Additionally, extensive design time went into creating a thermal cooling system that is inexpensive and light for small to mid-scale vehicles. Electric motorcycles and other small scale EVs don’t have the luxury of space like electric cars and busses.”

A new battery standard?

While Evoke Motorcycles plans to use their new 2nd generation batteries on their own upcoming electric motorcycle designs, they will also open the door to outside OEMs that can design other electric vehicles to fit their batteries.

This could be the latest in a string of new battery standards to hit the market. KYMCO unveiled their Ionex line of electric scooters earlier this year, complete with swappable battery packs. Then KYMCO announced Ionex Commercial, which is looking to partner with OEMs to develop outside EVs based on KYMCO’s battery packs.

Gogoro, one of KYMCO’s main competitors in the Taiwanese electric scooter market, also manufacturers swappable electric scooter batteries. The company followed KYMCO’s announcement with their own partnership announcement. Gogoro is also partnering with OEMs to produce electric scooters and other light EVs based on the company’s swappable batteries.

However, so far both KYMCO and Gogoro batteries have been largely targeted towards electric scooters. Evoke Motorcycles, on the other hand, has set its sights on a wider range of light and medium-sized electric vehicles that could incorporate a large number of Evoke’s 2nd generation batteries daisy-chained together.

Such a setup could presumably make better use of the integrated active cooling and thermal management system built into Evoke’s battery packs.

Electrek’s Take

The light electric vehicle battery war has definitely been shaping up over the past few months. This can only be a good thing for consumers.

These new 2nd generation batteries by Evoke Motorcycles are even more exciting due to their higher tech thermal management systems, which opens the door to larger and more powerful vehicles.

I can imagine a small electric vehicle that supports a handful of these battery packs, allowing the driver to choose how much battery capacity the car needs for different types of trips. It could make the car much more efficient on short and medium-length rides that don’t require hundreds of kilometers worth of battery capacity.

Even just for electric motorcycles though, these batteries sound promising. For reference, Evoke’s current lineup of motorcycles includes bikes with approximately 19 kW (25 hp) motors and 7 kWh battery packs. Evoke’s motorcycles generally reach top speeds of around 80 mph (129 km/h). With prices in the $8,000 range, their performance and price both fall under the range of industry leader Zero Motorcycles, but above other budget-level imported electric motorcycles.

I think there’s a lot of room for a mid-range electric motorcycle in the current market. Something with a price and performance level below a Zero but still capable of highway speeds could have significant appeal to commuters who are currently on the fence. And these new 2nd generation batteries, which promise better battery life and improved performance with faster charging, will only make the bikes more appealing.

What do you think about Evoke Motorcycles and their new electric motorcycle batteries? Let us know in the comments below.

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