Royal Enfield Electric Launching in 2025

[Hugh Janus]

Royal Enfield will bring its first electric motorcycle to market in 2025. (Royal Enfield/)

We’re a year away from the market launch of Royal Enfield’s first production electric motorcycle according to a new interview between the company’s chief executive and the Financial Times.

RE’s CEO, B. Govindarajan, explained that the motorcycle will make its debut during the 2025 financial year and dropped a few hints to the bike’s design, including the fact that it will have a fixed battery with fast-charging ability rather than taking the swappable battery route. He also said that the bike will be “gorgeous looking” and “very differentiated” while explaining that while other companies currently struggle to make money from electric vehicles, the Royal Enfield will be competitive and, presumably, profitable when it hits the market.

So what will the new Royal Enfield EV be like? From what we can glean, there are currently at least two active electric motorcycle projects underway at the company. One is the electric Himalayan, which was shown as a prototype last year and described as a “glimpse of what to expect from us in the future.” The other is a lightweight, city-oriented electric bike with retro styling cues, more akin to the Maeving RM1 in terms of its style and performance.

Royal Enfield’s Electric Himalayan prototype has been undergoing testing in the same rugged Himalaya mountains where the new ICE model was developed. (Royal Enfield/)

It’s this latter machine that’s increasingly looking like it will be the first electric Royal Enfield to be launched into the market. Not only has the styling for the model recently appeared in official design registration paperwork from the company, but two potential contenders for the bike’s name have emerged, either Royal Babe-E or Flying Flea.

We’ve already reported on the possible revival of the Flying Flea name, which has been the subject of over 20 trademark applications globally by Royal Enfield’s patent company, Eicher, since 2020. The other possible title—Royal Babe-E—appeared, without direct reference, on a slide in the background of an investor relations presentation by Royal Enfield in 2022. If you have 3.5 hours to kill, the whole presentation is on YouTube here, but has amassed only a little over 400 views in the two years since it was posted.

Caught in a presentation on YouTube is a prototype called the “electriK01.” Will this bike be called the Flying Flea when it hits production? (Royal Enfield/)

The slide, which appears more than an hour and a half into the presentation (here), is used as an example of Royal Enfield’s development process but refers directly to the electric bike project. It describes the machine as having “Original Styling—Standout, Striking” with “Uniqueness such as…girder fork…large diameter wheel, elegant lines, narrow body.” Other elements mentioned included: “high-quality, tactile finishes and touch points” and a “neo vintage/classic” style. All these things match the recent design registration, and later in the same presentation a photograph is shown of a concept bike—badged “electriK01″—with similar attributes that had probably been used for the customer clinics, as it hasn’t been shown in public.

When it comes to the name, the Flying Flea title appears to be the favorite but the 2022 presentation slide included a logo reading Royal Babe-E with the word “Royal” adopting the same font used for the Royal Enfield badge, accompanied by “Babe-E” in a more modern font underneath it.

Royal Enfield has more than 20 trademark registrations around the world for the name “Flying Flea.” (Royal Enfield/)

That badge appears to be a play on the name of a short-lived lightweight model, the 125cc Royal Enfield Royal Baby, or RB, which debuted in 1939. It was essentially a copy of an earlier DKW design, the 100cc RT, with a two-stroke single and lightweight design, that was developed for the Dutch market. The timing meant only around 190 RBs were made before World War II, but it lived on as the WD/RE (for War Department/Royal Enfield), a lightweight combat bike for paratroopers better known as the Flying Flea. It’s also conceivable that the Royal Babe-E name could be intended for a whole sub-brand of electric models (hence the emphasis on the “E”) with the Flying Flea as its first offering. This is supported by the fact that the 2022 presentation slide also showed a second electric bike logo—the traditional winged RE badge but with a lightning strike through it—alongside the Babe-E one.

While the lightweight, city-oriented electric Royal Enfield, whether called the Flying Flea or Babe-E, makes sense in the current economic climate—small, electric city bikes are selling more strongly than larger, longer-range ones—the electric Himalayan project is clearly also well developed and has been ongoing for a substantial amount of time. Indeed, even though the prototype was officially shown only late last year, it also appeared in the same presentation that revealed the Babe-E/Flying Flea in 2022, with Royal Enfield’s design chief Mark Wells introducing a brief video of the bike in action here.

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[YamaHead]

I can hear Pete now: ...."Indian P.O.S.!" 

[boboneleg]

That has @Slowlycatchymonkey name all over it