ELECTRIC VESPA

The iconic Italian brand has reinvented its scooter for the 21st century. Here’s what you need to know about the battery-powered Elettrica.

There’s still a lot of scepticism among bikers that electric motorcycles are a plausible option for serious riders looking to make the switch from petrol power. They exclaim about the difficulty of covering even moderate miles due to the limitations inflicted by charging times and the limited charging infrastructure. They probably have a point. It’s a different way of doing things, and it does make it difficult to cover hundreds and hundreds of miles in a single sitting.

How many riders actually do that is another conversation altogether, but there is one place where it’s widely agreed (even by staunch petrolheads) that electric two-wheelers make sense. Towns and cities.

If you’re not covering big distances and instead you’re planning to nip about in an urban environment, then there’s no denying the effectiveness of an electric motorcycle or scooter… and that’s without mentioning the ever-tightening emissions regulations that are being rolled out with increasing vigour.

That’s probably part of the reason why sales of electric scooters and motorcycles are growing every year in the UK. While they may only make up a very small percentage of the market (2.5% in 2020), the MCIA reports that sales for the first 10 months of 2021 are up by 160% compared to the previous year. That’s nothing to be sniffed at. It seems battery power is here to stay.

The scooter market’s particularly interesting in the UK. You’d think it’d be comparatively straightforward for a ‘big name’ manufacturer to create an electric scooter from the bones of one of their existing rides. But that’s not really what’s happened. Yes, there are plenty of manufacturers looking for a slice of the action, but up until now the market’s been dominated by technology start-ups and Chineseimported machines. The bigger names in the game have been mostly missing in action leaving companies such as SuperSoco, NIU and Sur-Ron to clean up. But there is a scooter that bucks the trend, from a company that’s been one of the biggest names in the scooter market for 75 years. It’s the Vespa Elettrica.

First launched back in 2018 with 4.2kWh lithium-ion battery and moped-level performance, it was joined by a slightly faster version in 2019 (that’s actually only a few hundred quid more expensive).

It’s not exactly been a resounding

success so far, with less than a hundred sold from its release until the start of 2021, but Vespa made the decision to get involved in the electric ‘revolution’ early on. We had our eye on it when it was first released, with its chrome bodywork and traditional Vespa styling helping it to stand out from the crop of more utilitarian commuter scooters from other manufacturers, and now we’ve finally had the chance to swing our leg over the ‘moped’ version and see how well it goes on the road.

First things first, let’s talk about the motor. The Elettrica kicks 4kW (or 5.2bhp in old money). It’s not a lot, but it’s bang on the money for a wellput-together moped. The torque’s a different story altogether, with an impressive 200Nm to play with. It sounds a lot – and it is – but you have to remember it’s ‘just’ a moped and as a result it’s not as quick off the line as the numbers might suggest. It will get up to the 30mph limit fairly quickly, and it’ll comfortably sit there even when you hit a hill, but you’d be best off avoiding any major roads and instead stick to towns and cities.

The 4.2kWh battery helps to offer a claimed 62 miles of range. We think that’s optimistic and if you’re riding flat out you’d easily drain the whole thing in half that time. That said, 30 miles is still a respectable distance for a learner-legal moped and chances are most riders wouldn’t be covering that kind of distance on a regular basis. To charge it up you’ll need to remove the battery from the scooter and connect it to a three-pin domestic plug socket. Although it’s a bit of a faff lugging it around, it does mean you can charge it pretty much anywhere, which Piaggio claims will take a total of four hours.

Handling is good. It’s planted and agile in equal measure, with the conventional front forks and single rear shock (which offers pre-load adjustment) doing their best to soak up the worst of the road. It’s not the most plush of rides, but for round town it’s more than adequate. The 12-inch wheels and short wheelbase mean it’s happiest nipping in and out of traffic rather than sitting flat out on open roads.

Stopping is looked after by a drum brake at the rear and a 240mm disc up front. There’s no ABS or CBS, and it’s none the worse for it. It stops easily enough and there’s plenty of feel to make tight turns a doddle.

Despite its technological prowess, the Elettrica’s a fairly simple affair. There is a reverse gear, but aside from that the dash is the only other feature of note. It prioritises the speedometer and battery gauge, but it also offers the choice to scroll between max/ average speed, power consumption, an odometer and a trip. Oh, and there’s smartphone connectivity, too. The location of the battery also means that there’s still some storage space under the seat like a traditional scooter. It’s a nice touch and there’s room for an open face helmet (and little else).

There’s no denying that the Vespa Elettrica is expensive. Costing £6300 and £6600 respectively, the good news is that you can access the UK Government’s Plug-In Grant which knocks a bit off the price – but even then you’ll still have to fork out a fairly hefty £5040 or £5280.

That’s significantly more than any other electric moped/scooter on the market. It is Vespa. It is well built. And it does go well, too.

But no matter how sophisticated and easy to ride it is, it’s still way too expensive for the average commuter. I think Vespa knows that. It sees the Elettrica as a flagship ‘exclusive’ electric scooter, and that’s probably why its parent company Piaggio has just released a more affordable electric scooter itself.

We’ll be riding that as soon as we get the chance.

“It is Vespa. It is well built. And it does go well, too. But no matter how sophisticated and easy to ride it is, it’s still way too expensive for the average commuter.”