If you've been keeping an eye on electric motorcycle developments for a minute, then you may remember two concepts that Taiwanese moto manufacturer KYMCO brought to EICMA in 2022. The fully-faired SuperNEX and the 'naked' (as much as an electric bike is ever completely naked) RevoNEX showcased excitingly futuristic design.
But they were just concepts, so who knew when or if they would find their way to production? And beyond that, how much of the design language seen and admired by the public at that time would carry through to any production model? After all, we'd already seen the two concepts undergo significant design changes of their own, having both been initially introduced by KYMCO in the years prior.
Then came the announcement that Kymco was teaming up with none other than LiveWire to manufacture some of its S3 bikes, primarily intended for Asian markets. As a refresher, LiveWire refers to the One as an S1 bike; the Del Mar and Mulholland as S2 bikes, and some future, smaller models that have yet to be released as S3.
Plans announced in 2023 indicate that an S4, once it gets to that point, will circle back and be electric versions of the cruisers most commonly associated with parent company Harley-Davidson, but that's getting slightly ahead of ourselves.
The bikes will make use of the KYMCO Ionex platform, as confirmed at EICMA 2023 to RideApart by KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko. But recent patent applications filed by KYMCO seemingly give glimpses under the plastics of what could be RevoNEX and SuperNEX-based creations that bear a strong resemblance to existing LiveWires.
More specifically, to existing LiveWire S2 machines.
To be clear, these patent drawings are from two different recent KYMCO patent applications. It's not the external details that are super similar to LiveWire S2 bikes, of course; it's what's under the bodywork. The wheels, body panels, and location of the charging port are all different according to both the concepts previously shown, and also these patents.
It's also not clear if this means we can expect similar power and performance figures from the KYMCO versions of these bikes, nor whether they'll ever eventually appear in the same markets.
The exact details of the LiveWire/KYMCO manufacturing and development partnership aren't entirely clear to outsiders. So, while KYMCO currently sells its combustion bikes and scooters in tons of markets around the world, that doesn't necessarily mean the same will hold true for whatever it calls the electric motorcycles that it eventually puts into production. Stay tuned.
