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Agility Saietta electric sports bike eyes-on
We came, we saw, we took pictures. A London-based startup by the name of Agility today unveiled its first and only product, the Saietta electric sports bike, and we just had to pop out to the MCN Motorcycle Show in its hometown to peep it for ourselves. Well, what is there to say that the pictures don't already? We should probably start off with that massive hump you see up front. At first glance it makes the bike look extremely front-heavy, but it is in actual fact mostly a shell -- made of a lightweight composite material whose ingredients we were not allowed to know -- which channels air into the areas that need cooling and, more importantly, optimizes the hell out of this two-wheeler's aerodynamics. There's an exposed double wishbone suspension system, just some of the eye candy on this extremely reflective racer, and the weight balance is, contrary to our first impression, almost perfectly even. This is due to the battery packs being stashed in the center, just in front of a brushed DC motor with 90+ percent efficiency (Agility tells us the whole roaring machine has an 83 percent throughput efficiency). %Gallery-115665% There will be a choice of body panels, we saw a highly reflective chrome one, but a tamer red version is also available. Speaking of colors, the tiny speedometer lights up in a snazzy blue for night riding. We were looking at only the company's third production prototype, but pre-orders are already being taken -- at prices of just under £10,000 for the S model with a 50-mile range and just under £14,000 for the R variant that has a twin battery pack and, correspondingly, can stretch out to 100 miles -- for an April delivery. US pricing is said to feature a "slight" premium, but Agility hopes it may be able to build some of these Saietta bikes over on the West Coast, potentially cutting into the expense of selling them in North America. The only thing our pictures don't reveal is how a bike with instant torque and a four-second 0-60 acceleration (on the lighter S model, the R does it in five) feels like, but if we're really good over the next few weeks, we might just get a chance to ride one and find out for ourselves.
Agility Saietta unveiled, the decidedly unconventional electric sports bike
A new player has entered the electric motorcycle game, joining the likes of Brammo's Empulse but doing it with rather more... unconventional styling. It's the Agility Global Saietta, an all-electric sports bike that will come in two flavors: the 50 mile range Saietta S and the 100 mile Saietta R. The former of the two will be quicker than the first, getting to 60 in under four seconds, whereas R riders will have to wait another tick of the stopwatch due to extra battery weight. Naturally that extra range and speed will cost you: £9,975 for the S and £13,975 for the R, figures that equate to roughly $16,200 and $22,650. Hefty sums, both, but nobody said being on the cutting edge of the humpbacked sport bike trend was going to be cheap. We weren't given any specific horsepower or weight figures, but we're told the power to weight ratio is 675hp per ton. You can make your own guesses about weight to try and get a firm power figure, but it certainly should be peppy enough. At this point we don't know much about the bikes themselves beyond what you can see in the photos, which show a trellis frame cradling a sizeable battery pack. The swingarm is a combination of machined parts and pipes, rear suspension elevated to make room for the electric motor sitting just above the pivot point. Front suspension also shows an unconventional design, offset steering linkage and a single damper eschewing the traditional fork design found on your average (non-BMW) motorcycle. These images are, of course, just renders, but the bike has just made its word debut at the MCN London Motorcycle Show and we'll be bringing you some actual pictures as soon as we get them. As to when those who order the bikes will get theirs, we're told shipments begin in April. Update: We have some pictures from the Saietta launch at MCN. Real, honest to gosh photos, these. Update 2: We're told it's actually the lighter S that's quicker to 60, not the R, despite what the PR says below. %Gallery-115545% %Gallery-115642%
