Wandering the 1057 booths at the 2008 INTERMOT Bike Show in Cologne, Germany, one of Motorcycle USA’s favorite exhibits was the Innovation Café. Featuring alternative two-wheeled designs, electric motorcycles and scooters were prominent. Yet there was one electric design that stood out in our minds, the Honda Oree.A naked street bike concept, the diminutive scale model size of the Oree doesn’t diminish its big ideas. The creation of two German design college students, Nike Albertus and Andre Look, the intention of the Oree “was to create a concept bike for dynamic road riding.”
Creating the model only days before the INTERMOT show, Albertus and Look sourced their interest in motorcycles and honed their talent at the Academy of Art and Design in Offenbach am Main.
Creating the model only days before the INTERMOT show, Albertus and Look sourced their interest in motorcycles and honed their talent at the Academy of Art and Design in Offenbach am Main.
2012 Honda Oree Bike
2012 Honda Oree Bike
“One of our first fundamentals was to create a concept bike which is made by riders for riders,” explains Look, “with the ambition of innovation and also the idea of making the technique and the concept work.”
The minimalist design is fashioned around an electric motor, with radial battery packs placed around the circular edge of the powerplant – including the recharge plug. Citing the performance benefits of an electric motor, including high torque at low revs and quick acceleration, Look notes his design also does without a CVT gearbox or clutch. Instead power is transmitted directly via belt drive.The ambitious student design anticipates a motor producing 90-plus horsepower, 125 lb-ft of torque and top speed near 120 mph. Weight would be in the range of 290-375 lbs with a range of between 80-190 miles, depending on the number of batteries used. Of course, this is all speculative, as no such batteries or motor now exists (remember it’s a design college project!).
“The main point of our design was to let the rider feel the action happening in and around the motorcycle,” says Look on the unique lines of the Oree.
The minimalist design is fashioned around an electric motor, with radial battery packs placed around the circular edge of the powerplant – including the recharge plug. Citing the performance benefits of an electric motor, including high torque at low revs and quick acceleration, Look notes his design also does without a CVT gearbox or clutch. Instead power is transmitted directly via belt drive.The ambitious student design anticipates a motor producing 90-plus horsepower, 125 lb-ft of torque and top speed near 120 mph. Weight would be in the range of 290-375 lbs with a range of between 80-190 miles, depending on the number of batteries used. Of course, this is all speculative, as no such batteries or motor now exists (remember it’s a design college project!).
“The main point of our design was to let the rider feel the action happening in and around the motorcycle,” says Look on the unique lines of the Oree.
2012 Honda Oree Bike
2012 Honda Oree Bike
2012 Honda Oree Bike
The Oree was met with enthusiasm in the Innovation Café. “The response at the Intermot Cologne was stunning,” confirms Look, “even a lot of Ducati riders were zealous about the look of the bike and the idea behind it.”As for the Oree’s non-scale-model future?
Although Honda CEO Takeo Fukui did announce the manufacturer plans to introduce an electric design in about two year’s time, don’t expect to see the Oree at your Honda dealership anytime soon. For now it remains an independent creative experiment, with Look saying, “how the project will continue is currently still open.”
Although Honda CEO Takeo Fukui did announce the manufacturer plans to introduce an electric design in about two year’s time, don’t expect to see the Oree at your Honda dealership anytime soon. For now it remains an independent creative experiment, with Look saying, “how the project will continue is currently still open.”
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