Company behind ‘first American-style cruiser electric motorcycle’ lifts the veil

This past weekend we first broke the news on a new electric motorcycle that was headed for a debut at the 2019 EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show next month. But as interesting as the Hadin Panther electric cruiser looked, there were some serious questions and suspicious riddles that were left unanswered.

Now we’ve caught up with the company to get to the bottom of the mystery of what they call the “first American-style cruiser electric motorcycle.”

Hadin Panther cruiser electric motorcycle

The Hadin Panther is one of the few e-bikes of this style in existence. Between the Hadin Panther, the Evoke 6061, and the Tacita T-Cruise, that pretty much sums up the electric cruiser motorcycle market.

Among the three, though, the Hadin Panther embodies the most old-school, American-style cruiser feel. It’s not particularly high-powered at just 45 kW (60 hp), but it at least tops out at a highway-capable 130 km/h (80 mph). It’s not fast enough to lose your license, but fast enough to get you around just about anywhere. As long as that anywhere is within 160 km (100 miles), the bike’s range is on a single charge.

When we first reported on the bike, the company’s website referred to Hadin as a California-founded company. Despite finding an initial trademark filing from 2016 attributed to a California-registered LLC, every other clue we dug up in our research pointed to this being a Chinese-run enterprise.

After a few days of trying to contact the company to learn more, we finally succeeded. And Hadin’s representative Brice helped set the record straight as well as provide a few more pretty photographs of the upcoming Hadin Panther electric motorcycle.

As Brice explained to Electrek, Hadin was originally founded in 2016 by a Chinese team with the goal of establishing itself in California.

Between the local R&D resources, startup culture, and American affinity for cruiser motorcycles, the company felt it could put itself in a strong position. However, according to Brice, they soon found that the US electric motorcycle industry was simply more fledgling that they had originally anticipated. Instead, the team realized they would have better R&D prospects in China. Thus, they returned home and spent the last three years taking advantage of the increased availability of parts, suppliers, and two-wheeled EV engineers in China to develop the Hadin Panther.

Last month, Hadin hired a Chinese PR firm to build their website in the lead-up to next week’s unveiling at the EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show. That website, which we originally found populated with the upcoming motorcycle’s specs, was accidentally launched prematurely and ended up spilling the beans a bit too soon. It has since been replaced by a single teaser page.

Oops.

So while the big launch might have been blown, the team is still excited for the official unveiling to occur at EICMA. Electrek will be there front and center to bring you the latest news, so make sure you keep checking back for more!