Four electric Royal Enfield motorcycles worth a second look

It is already known that there will be an electric Royal Enfield. Now it's just a matter of when. Most likely next year. A lot of mainstream manufacturers have introduced electric two-wheelers like Harley-Davidson, Kawasaki, Triumph, Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company and others, but not Royal Enfield yet. But will this be the first time for a Royal Enfield to go electric? Not even slightly.
The idea of electrifying the iconic Royal Enfield Bullet has crossed many minds and hence there are quite a few examples of electric Enfields. We're featuring four of them here, one of which was commissioned by Royal Enfield. This is perhaps a sneak peek into what can be expected from the forthcoming electric Royal Enfield.

Hammarhead Volta: This one is a blast from the past but in a way, more modern than your average Bullet 500. Long before the EV race caught pace across the globe, James Hammarhead built an all-electric motorcycle based on a Royal Enfield Bullet 500 some 12 years ago. The Volta has a BLDC 3-phase permanent magnet brushless motor which delivers 13.4 hp of continuous output and 40 hp peak. Top speed is 120 km/h, with a range of 80 km.

The Charging Bullet: This is a story about a man's dream to convert his Bullet 500 into an electric motorcycle. Say hello to Fred Spaven'ss Charging Bullet which he rode through the length of Britain. The Charging Bullet, in fact, uses a donor frame from a Bullet 500 that had spent years on Indian roads. He retrofitted a new electric battery pack and drivetrain, resulting in a power output of 11.4 hp and a range of about 64-80 km in one full charge. Spaven runs an engineering firm that also offers conversion kits for motorcycles.


This one's from Bangkok and from December 2017. Images of this electric Royal Enfield Bullet did rounds on the Internet but not much is known about this electric conversion and whether it was commissioned by Royal Enfield or was it a mod-job by a custom house in Thailand. The point is though that the idea of an electric Bullet is intriguing to many.

Royal Enfield Photon: This is the one we were on about earlier. Converted by Newtown-based Electric Classic Cars who convert classic cars from Porsche, Maserati, etc to electric ones, the Photon was their electric two-wheeler. Royal Enfield commissioned this build apparently to gauge the possibilities of a Bullet powered by an electric powertrain and so sent a Bullet 500 as the donor bike to convert. It delivers 15.6 hp and a range of about 128 km, with a top speed of 112 km/h. The Photon looks like a product finished by an OEM, and offers promising numbers too. Who knows the real deal to be unveiled hopefully next year will be based on the Photon.