Here it is, the new Yamaha TY-E in all its glory! Photo credit: Yamaha
Three days after applying a trademark in Europe for the TY-E, Yamaha Motor Company revealed what we all expected this TY-E to be: an electric trials bike.
Showed to the public for the first time today at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show, the TY-E will be used by Yamaha to compete in the FIM Trial-E Cup, a competition that this year will have two rounds, both in July, the first in Auron, France, and the second one in Comblain au Pont in Belgium.
The Yamaha TY-E is still only a factory competition project, a one-off works racing bike, so there’s no production version of it yet, though we should expect Yamaha to allow customers to purchase an electric trials bike in the future, based on this TY-E. During the reveal in Tokyo, Yamaha also took the opportunity to confirm that it will be Japanese Kenichi Kuroyama that will race the TY-E in the FIM Trial-E Cup.
But how about the bike itself? What makes this TY-E so special?
The TY-E is an advanced development deriving from the company’s “Evolving R & D” activities. The “Evolving R & D” uses 5% of its working hours at the Research and Development Division, and at the discretion of its staff, is used as an opportunity to provide voluntary and autonomous activities for creating innovation while not being bound by conventional frameworks.
It is here that Yamaha focused on a trial model for competition and worked on its development to help overcome EV development problems such as high output from small sized and lightweight components, and the ease of riding that responds as the rider would intend.
The TY-E has an AC synchronous electric motor, the lithium-ion batteries are fitted inside the carbon fiber monocoque frame covered in slim body panels with distinctive polygon shapes, and the clutch, unlike we usually see in electric vehicles, is a conventional manual clutch to give the rider better control, extremely important on a trials bike.
Yamaha managed to contain the weight to a minimum, and so the TY-E race machine weighs less than 70 kg.
Check the promotional video of the Yamaha TY-E below and tell us what you think in the comments.