Electric powertrains taking a tactical bent

Motorcycles built for tactical warfare isn’t a new idea; Zero Motorcycles was supplying America’s Special Forces with the silent and electric-powered MMX as far back as 2013. And while battery technology was still too much in its infancy at the time to have any longevity, there’s still the same need for the same solution to the same problem today.

Forces need transport capable of carrying one or more troops, it needs to be large enough to handle their associated equipment, yet compact enough to be able to drop from the air into a location if it’s needed. It needs to be robust enough to handle a wide range of extreme terrain and conditions but, most importantly, it needs to be as undetectable as possible to the enemy.

The original MMX was a 2WD electric-powered machine which made perfect sense on paper. However, four years is a long time in battery technology and you need twice as much energy to drive twice as many wheels. And while Zero claimed the MMX could be fully charged in just one minute, it wasn’t long before the machines were redundant in a world of groundbreaking technology.

The latest bike (made public, that is) the pentagon is reportedly interested in is a 2WD machine developed by Logis Technologies. But instead of being an all-electric affair, it uses a hybrid engine which allows the bike to be used in electric stealth mode when needed, switching to internal combustion power to conserve its 5.8kWh lithium-ion battery when it’s not.

The clever bit, however, is the bike is capable of running on various forms of fuel; propane, unleaded, AVGAS and jet fuel making the bike enormously practical in the unpredictable world of warfare.

Thinking of how special forces might apply other emerging technologies to their specially developed motorcycles, things like vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems could prove invaluable, especially if its information that is pinged directly to the rider’s heads-up display or, going a step further, a future development of Honda’s self-balancing (read: self-riding) motorcycle could prove invaluable to these organisations in the not-too-distant future.

But whatever the outcome, while electric brands and specialist organisations all scramble to find a workable and efficient solution to the problem, it’s all research and development that will eventually trickle down to production motorcycles that you and I may be riding in the future.