As the world moves toward electric propulsion, motorcycle manufacturers are coming out of the woodwork with their visions for the future. Many companies are working on smaller, more affordable motorcycles with usable range for the city environment. Thai motorcycle company Felo EV has been trying to make electric motorcycles for every type of rider. Its latest motorcycle is a big deal, literally. The Felo Tooz claims to be the world’s largest electric motorcycle yet. If that wasn’t silly enough, the company also says it’ll go 450 miles on a charge, better than a standard Tesla Cybertruck. Somehow, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke, so let’s take a look.
This morning, I ran across news so absurd that I’m still laughing about it as I type this sentence. New Atlas reported the existence of this motorcycle after finding it at the 45th Bangkok International Motor Show. The show featured big names like Harley-Davidson, Royal Enfield, and Triumph, but the truly interesting stuff at the show came from Thailand’s companies.
I’ve written about Felo EV before and it’s a bit of an international effort. Felo EV is the research and development arm of Hiyee-tong (Shanghai) Industrial Co. The company was founded in 2019 and gets funding from Taiwanese motorcycle manufacturer Kymco, a well-known name in the motorcycle world. In the past, FELO and Kymco joined forces with another Chinese brand, Super Soco, to develop and sell affordable electric motorcycles with swappable batteries.
Felo EV is looking to break into global markets and right now it’s eying Europe and Thailand. In November 2023, Felo EV partnered up with Thai motorcycle company Smartech Motor to introduce its motorcycles into the country.
If you live in Thailand, you can now buy Felo’s sweet EVs, a couple of which look like modern interpretations of 1980s Honda designs.
In 2023, Felo introduced the M1, an 81-pound scooter that looks a like modern Honda Motocompo and like the Honda, folds up and fits into the trunks of small cars. It’s awesome that there are now multiple modern interpretations of the Motocompo out there, including the Honda Motocompacto!
Another totally Honda-inspired design from Felo EV is the FW-03, which looks like a modernized and electric version of the Honda Cub EZ90 of the 1990s. Felo EV wasn’t even subtle with the FW-03, either, releasing a version with the exact color scheme as the old Hondas. However, Felo did something with the FW-03 Honda didn’t with the EZ90 and its scooter is road-legal!
That said, Felo EV doesn’t just bring decades-old Honda designs into the modern day. The company also sells a regular modern scooter with the Kymco F9-based FW-06 and the cyberpunk-ish FW-07. Now, after building a bunch of scooters, Felo EV wants to go big, real big. Where’s Mannie Fresh when you need him?
The Big Tooz
The Felo Tooz was unveiled at the Bangkok International Motor Show as a concept motorcycle for the future. Felo EV seems to suggest the Tooz will begin reaching customers in Thailand at the end of this year but doesn’t say what the motorcycle costs.
Perhaps more confusing is the press release. If you did not have prior knowledge of Felo EV or the partnership between Felo EV and Smartech, you might believe that Felo is a product of Smartech. The press release is written in such a way that you might think that Smartech made those sweet Honda-inspired EVs, when the company partnered up with Felo. The reason why I bring this up is because depending on the reports you read, Felo is either a Thai company or a Chinese company. And Smartech sounds impressive for having launched so many new models at the same time. It makes more sense when you have the context of partnering with an existing manufacturer.
A different press release further clears this up, explaining that Smartech and Felo are now collaborating as of November 2023, with the latter company setting up an R&D center in Thailand for future motorcycle development. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the massive machine Felo brought to the motor show.
The Felo Tooz is being touted as the world’s largest electric motorcycle. No specs are being offered to describe the motorcycle’s weight or its actual size, but just look at the thing, it’s comically huge. It looks like a Honda Gold Wing that gorged itself at a Golden Corral.
What we do know are some interesting technological details. Loaded into the motorcycle is a claimed 36 kWh (700-volt, 50 Ah) battery. Smartech says this motorcycle is built for touring and that it’ll be able to cover 450 miles in a single charge. Before we continue, this means Smartech and Felo are claiming to have built a motorcycle with the largest battery in the business and with far more range than any other electric motorcycle ever built.
To put that into comparison, the Evoke 6061-GT, an electric motorcycle that isn’t in production yet, claims a 30 kWh battery and 410 miles of city range or 308 miles of combined range. What about a motorcycle that you can buy right now from a known name? An Energica Experia is a touring machine with a 22.5 kWh battery (19.6 kWh nominal) with 261 miles of city range and 160 miles of combined range.
The 2023 Zero DSR/X that I’m testing long-term has a 17.3 kWh battery and a city range of 179 miles. Zero says at best, you’ll get 200 miles doing the slow speeds of off-roading.
What I’m getting at here is that even with a chunky 35 kWh battery, the Felo Tooz’s claim of 450 miles of range is incredible. Smartech and Felo don’t say how that range is achieved, but it has to be city range. Even then, 450 miles is a record-breaking distance for a production electric motorcycle, especially for an electric motorcycle of substantial size. So, we’ll have to wait to see if the 450-mile claim is reality.
Other technology bits include a large 12-inch LCD instrument cluster display, ABS, TPMS, and traction control.
The screen is larger than you’d get with other motorcycle manufacturers, but the rest is standard fare. One odd addition reportedly described as an option is an 8-liter cooling box in one of the hard cases. So, should this bike go into production, buyers would be able to keep cold snacks onboard.
Reportedly, Felo is going for that full tourer experience and the motorcycle will feature smartphone connectivity, navigation on that big screen, and a 6-channel surround sound system. Apparently, the motorcycle will even have a 360-degree camera system of some kind.
Another interesting noted feature is the fact that the motorcycle will have Vehicle to Load (V2L) capability, so you’ll be able to use that chunky battery pack as an emergency power source. Finally, Felo says the bike can charge from 20 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes and the motorcycle has a top speed of 125 mph.
If Felo and Smartech can do it, they will create a motorcycle capable of busting some records. It won’t be the fastest, but it could be the biggest, be saddled with the largest battery, and go the farthest on a charge. But that’s a lot of ifs. Either way, this thing is truly comical and I love the idea of it. I’m almost surprised it wasn’t brewed up by an American company.
From here, we’ll have to wait to see where this goes. Smartech has funding from the Thai Government and Felo already produces scooters, so the companies presumably have the funding to make the Felo Tooz a reality. Sadly, Felo still wants to focus on Thailand and Europe for now and no plans have been announced for the American market. That said, the Felo Tooz sounds like something that could work in America, if it becomes a reality. I’ll be watching out for this one to see if they reach production.
(Images: Manufacturers.)
That range claim is on the CLTC cycle, per a Thai-language stream of the unveil: https://www.facebook.com/FELOThai/videos/1070274247417427/
Also in that video, the unveil of their take on the Akira bike.
Any actual measurements for this thing? I just looked it up and the average height for a woman in Thailand in imperial inches is 5‘2“ (coincidentally the same height as Lady Gaga, who I once met and mistook for one of my children’s grade school friends, it was sort of embarrassing) , and maybe the model is not even average height.
Insanely jealous you met Mother.
Great! they have built the BEV Amazonas, which was a dancing bear of a motorcycle. Wild Bill Gelke’s Road Dog is still bigger and heavier, but that’s not really a surprise.
Oof, I’d hate to drop one of those and try and get it back upright.
But then, I wouldn’t want to drop my own bike.
It looks a little BMW-K-bike-esque if I squint at it, I don’t dislike the looks of this at all. And that range would be impressive.
The model looks like she is trying to cosplay as Buzz Lightyear.
I wish they’d dress models more appropriately. An actual motorcycle jacket wouldn’t make her less attractive, but it would help with the suspension of disbelief that she rides that particular bike.
Yeah, full latex bodysuits are not typical to wear when going down the road on a bike.
I know it shouldn’t be the takeaway, but I just keep thinking this company is begging for a meme of Steve Buscemi asking “How do you do Felo Motorcycles?”
450 probably at 40mph.I would want 450 highway. and even then I Need more range. I want to do an Iron Butt Saddle sore 1000 on an electric bike some day
I risk stealing Toecutter’s thunder here, but electric motorcycles with 450 miles of range from 30kWh packs (so 15mi/kWh) would be considered unexceptional if feet-forward riding configurations were the norm.
Feet-forward configurations improve both frontal area and Cd at the same time, so halving the CdA (and therefore reducing overall road load by around a third) isn’t a far-fetched proposition. These bikes weigh around half a ton; they’re meant for long cruises, so why not lean into that and improve the comfort with car-like feet-forward ergonomics?
What bikes are you using for these comparison statements of feet-forward having both lower Cd and better frontal area. Because almost no feet-forward bikes would have the rider leaning far enough backwards to decrease total area that I know of, and my intuition is saying a rider on an S1000RR is a heck of a lot slippery-er than a Road Glide.
Of course, the Alligator is a big exception to this, but that’s certainly a very unique bike.
Oh, and if we are talking comfort, I’ll take relatively feet-neutral and upright riding position for the most comfortable. Something like an ADV bike is super comfortable (though hard to reach the ground at stop lights depending on your height). I’d take that riding position over sitting on my tailbone any day of the week. That being said, “cramped” riding position commonly brought on by rear controls and acute knee angles and a lot of weight leaning forwards (either requiring a lot of core strength or simply putting a lot of weight on your shoulders and wrists) aren’t very comfortable either.
I should have used “feet first” instead of “feet forward”; I was specifically referring to bikes in the style of the Alligator, and ones ideally with even lower seating positions like the Quasar. Those would give the sedan-like seating positions and favorable CdA values that an electric cruiser motorcycle could take advantage of.
So designs that no on realistically buys.
I am with you on the premise of having my feet under me for comfort. I really don’t want to feel every road impact directly translated through the seat to my spine and would much prefer to have some load on my feet.
I understand much of the Cd loss on bikes is the empty space around the rider causing turbulence. If someone could fill that in more, there’s a definite case for improvement (much like a racebike riders’s suits with the rear hump filling the void behind their helmets); openly I wonder if a topbox improves the Cd on a bike (and if it could be scooted forwards when riding 1-up).
I think it will need significantly better aerodynamics than what the shown configuration could hope to provide. I could see 450 miles range on 36 kWh in low-speed city riding, but on the highway at 70 mph, I suspect range will drop to around 250-300 miles. Unless this thing has a Cd value of under 0.3 for its given frontal area(which would be an absurdly low value for a motorycle), I don’t see it coming close. Which as far as the available motorcycles go, would still be fairly good.
This said, Cd values for a motorcycle approaching 0.11 are possible, and with it, highway Wh/mile consumption in the 30-40 Wh/mile range:
https://www.zigwheels.com/news-features/news/meet-the-fastest-electric-motorcycle-in-the-world-white-motorcycles-wmc250ev/42489/