Designing a motorbike around its battery
Why the Saetta started as a box of cells and a frame drawn to hold it.
Published
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Most electric motorbikes still borrow the shape of a petrol bike and hide the battery where the engine used to be. With the Saetta we went the other way: the pack came first, and everything else was drawn to hold it.
Start with the heaviest part
The battery is the heaviest and least flexible part of the bike. Once it sits low and central, the frame, the seat and the rider all fall into place around it. The tank shape people expect simply had no reason to exist.
A frame you can read
We kept the cast aluminium frame visible from the side, so the structure explains itself. Every surface either carries load, cools the cells or protects the rider. Nothing is there for decoration.
The result is a bike that looks quiet when it stands still and makes complete sense once you see how it is built.
