On October 6, 2023, Kawasaki Motors Europe introduced yet another new model that involves electricity and is in the Ninja family—but don’t call it an electric bike. It’s the 2024 Kawasaki Ninja 7 Hybrid Electric Vehicle, or HEV. Team Green first introduced a prototype and briefly discussed it at EICMA 2022, but that was nearly a year ago—and a lot has advanced between then and now.
As the name suggests, it’s powered by two things. On the combustion side, there’s a new 451cc parallel twin engine that’s capable of manual or automatic gear selection. On the electric side, Kawasaki uses a 9-kilowatt (about 12 horsepower) traction motor with a 48-volt battery pack. Team Green is calling this combination a strong hybrid system, and brags that it’s the world’s first mass-produced motorbike of this type.
