On October 3, 2023, Kawasaki officially introduced its first two electric motorcycles, the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1, to the United States market. The bikes have been in development for some time, and Kawasaki has been careful to share tantalizing glimpses of their development to keep global interest piqued. It brought near-production concepts to EICMA 2022 and also did a presentation there in front of a global audience.
Now, if you’re at all like me, one of the first questions you might have asked yourself is what kind of batteries it would be using. After all, in March 2022, Kawasaki banded together with Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha to work on swappable battery solutions via a new firm called Gachaco. From its public introduction, Kawasaki talked about the Ninja EV and Z EV having swappable batteries. The math was right in front of us.
Still, there’s more than one way to do just about everything—and we’ve since seen that Gachaco’s swappable battery stations in Japan use batteries that look very similar to the Honda Mobile Power Pack. It’s a completely different form factor than what you can see in the detailed photos that Kawasaki provided with its launch of the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1. While it’s possible that Gachaco could have more than one design, the battery details for the first two electric bikes from Team Green weren’t completely clear at first.
Gallery: 2024 Kawasaki Ninja e-1 and Z e-1
As it turns out, a French company called Forsee Power is providing the Kawasaki Ninja e-1 and Z e-1 with its own swappable battery packs. Specifically, it’s using a pair of GO 1.6 battery packs, along with the associated cable and charging dock for customers who wish to charge their batteries off the bike. The packs are 1.6 kilowatt hour (kWh) 48-volt units, which Forsee says can be swapped up to 10,000 times.
Who or what is Forsee Power? It’s a company that’s been around since 2012, and that supplies a range of battery power for both light and heavy vehicles. It makes electric bus batteries, as well as supplying smaller battery solutions for things like Kubota hybrid agricultural equipment—or small electric motorbikes.
At the end of September 2023, Forsee announced the establishment of a new office in Yokohama, Japan. During the press conference, it also talked about being proud to supply Kawasaki with batteries for the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1 electric motorcycles throughout the world.
“We are very proud that Kawasaki has chosen Forsee Power to power its legendary Ninja motorcycle and the Z model. It is a great sign for the electrification of motorcycles when a world leader like Kawasaki launches an electric version of two models that have met such success with city riders over the years,” Forsee Power chairman and CEO Christophe Gurtner said at the event.
