Frog eBike 2012 Concept

Modern motorcycle design is predicated on a handful of essential elements - two wheels, a frame, and a centrally mounted engine. Once those structural basics are in place, the styling gurus can go to town, moulding the faring and chiselling the rear end.

But what if there was no centrally mounted engine per se and the frame was the body?

Meet the Frog eBike 2012 Concept, an electric bike that eschews many contemporary motorcycle design tenets and, for better or worse, pushes the envelope.

Created by Jin Seok Hwang, at the New York offices of Frog Design, the eBike 2012 Concept is based around a striking central frame which integrates all controls (including the handlebars), the seat, headlight and battery pack.

There's also a gaping hole in the middle of the frame, a design cue that was not by accident. It was intentionally created by Hwang to highlight the shift from internal combustion engines to electric engines.

"The large mass of the combustion engine, formerly a defining feature of a motorcycles profile, is now a symbolic void," notes Hwang.

The low-slung swing arm is heavily reinforced and connect the hubless rear wheel, which also houses the bike's engine. We're not sure what this would do for unsprung weight or manoeuvrability but it certainly makes a statement by shifting the engine from the bike's core.

According to Hwang, the Frog eBike 2012 Concept is all about visual impact: "The overriding expression I aimed to capture is the resulting visual impact of the electric motor replacing the traditional combustion engine and its related systems.

"The new electric motor’s copper coils moved inside a hubless rear wheel, at once streamlining the motorcycles composition and providing for a highly efficient and direct transmission of power."

Hwang explains that he didn't want to move too far away from the traditional form of a motorbike and so kept the area behind the handlebars relatively high.
"I was very conscious about retaining the emotional impact of the iconic motorcycle silhouette however, and as such repurposed the bulky volume formerly known as the gas tank. It has become an ergonomic affordance for the rider, a support underneath and in front of the rider hugging his or her bike at great speeds."

The high-tech Frog eBike makes use of fly-by-wire steering, which sounds a bit scary, but could work (in theory). The motorcycle also has "…full time connection to the cloud, and a helmet with heads-up display and retina tracking," according to Hwang.

Electric bikes will inevitably become a major part of the motorcycle landscape in future as emissions controls tighten up. We want to know if you guys, regular and casual motorcyclists, will consider buying an electric bike in the next eight or so years? In other words, would you consider going electric by 2020? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.