Segway-Ninebot has just announced the newest electric vehicles in its product portfolio during an unveiling at the 2019 SEMA show. But these aren’t the company’s typical electric scooters. Instead, Segway-Ninebot rolled out two electric dirt bikes.
Despite the company’s success selling low-cost electric scooters, Segway-Ninebot has set its sights on expanding into electric power sports.
As Segway-Ninebot’s marketing director Julie Tang explained to Electrek:
We are trying to continue developing cool products, futuristic products, in order to expand our portfolio to appeal to outdoor adventurers in addition to city dwellers. We want to keep expanding our existing customer base and give them more options.
And the first step has been to roll out two new electric dirt bikes.
Segway-Ninebot’s new electric dirt bikes
Segway-Ninebot’s electric dirt bikes come in two models, the X160 and X260.
The X160 features a 3 kW peak motor that helps the bike top out at 50 km/h (31 mph). It has a range of 65 km (40 mi) from its 48 V and 1 kWh battery.
The larger X260 has a stronger 5 kW peak motor and a higher top speed of 75 km/h (46.6 mph). Its larger 60 V and 1.8 kWh battery offers a higher range of 120 km (74.6 mi).
Both bikes use belt-driven primary reductions and chain-driven secondary reductions. Both also offer suspension comprised of a multi-link rear hydraulic shock and a front inverted suspension fork. The X260 has larger 19-inch wheels compared to the 17-inch wheels on the X160. The X260 also gets a double crown fork, compared to the single crown fork found on the X160.
Just don’t call them Sur Rons…
If you’re getting déjà vu or you think these electric dirt bikes look familiar, you might not be mistaken. They look a lot like the Sur Ron electric bike.
When I asked Julie about this, I ended up learning something new:
Sur Ron is actually in our ecosystem. We’re the largest shareholder of Sur Ron.
So it’s not so much that these are Sur Rons, but rather that Sur Rons are Segways.
Though in actuality it’s a bit more complicated than that. While the X160 and X260 are based on the Sur Ron platform, Segway did more than slap a few stickers on them. Julie explained that the company re-engineered the design in critical places to make the bikes more robust and improve earlier issues with the original design.
And while the original Sur Rons are a bit more obscure, limited largely to the high-power electric bike crowd, Segway hopes that its X160 and X260 will appeal to a wider dirt bike audience. And while Sur Rons are generally purchased online, Segway-Ninebot does a lot of retail sales as well, which could help put this platform in front of a wider audience.
How can you get a Segway electric dirt bike?
Segway-Ninebot will be marketing the X160 and X260 mostly in the US. The company will begin taking pre-orders for the electric dirt bikes later this month on Indiegogo. That platform has become a common launching pad for electric two-wheelers from startups and established companies alike.
The X160 and X260 have MSRPs of $2,999 and $4,999 respectively but will be offered with discounts during the pre-order period. Production and deliveries are expected to begin in Q1 of 2020.
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