It looks like Indian is preparing to take the electric motorcycle fight to manufacturers like Harley-Davidson & Zero Motorcycles.
According to a recent media report, Indian Motorcycle has filed a global patent for the name 'EFTR'. Now, it's not too difficult to join the dots here as an 'E' before the name 'FTR' quite plainly hints at some sort of an electric motorcycle based on the American bikemaker's FTR 1200. And the fact that the name EFTR has been filed under the 'electric motorcycle' category further clears the air on the matter. Plus, given that it's a worldwide patent (filed in multiple countries), it looks like the EFTR will also make it to markets outside the United States.
Unfortunately, nothing beyond this is known at the moment about Indian's electric motorcycle's plans. We don't even know what kind of technology Indian is looking at for its debut electric motorcycle. Although, since Indian Motorcycle is now owned by Polaris, we can look back at the Victory Empulse TT, which happened to be Polaris' first electric motorcycle. Though the Empulse TT was shelved within a very short period, it could potentially give us some ballpark figures for the EFTR.
For those not aware, Polaris had started its own bike company called Victory Motorcycles in 1998, to compete directly with Harley-Davidson. However, due to Victory's growing losses and Polaris' focus shifting to Indian Motorcycle (which it had acquired in 2011), Victory Motorcycles ended production in 2017.
However, we're in the middle of 2020 and a product from 2016 isn't the base for a new product. On the other hand, the electric motorcycle space has now had some time to grow and companies like Harley-Davidson & Zero Motorcycles have already beaten Indian Motorcycle to the punch with the LiveWire & SR/F, respectively. Convention says that Indian will have these two key rivals in mind while working on the EFTR.
It'll be interesting to see just how much of the FTR 1200's brutishness is carried over to the EFTR. The timeframe of its debut though is anyone's guess right now!
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