TE-1 WINS ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE OF THE YEAR
Triumph Motorcycles’ prototype TE-1 has won the “Electric Motorbike of the Year” award at the 2023 GQ Car Awards.
Paul Henderson, one of the judges: “With a 0–60mph time of 3.6 seconds, top speed of 135mph, a 100-mile range on a single charge, and a 0-to-80 per cent charge time of just 20 minutes, Triumph’s first fully electric prototype has exceeded all expectations to set new standards in the sector. Triumph says they have no plans to put the TE-1 into production, but the technological advances, battery development and electronic breakthroughs will all feature in the British motorcycle brand’s next gen (or should that be first gen) production EV. In other words, the best is yet to come.”
Steve Sargent, Chief Product Officer, "We are delighted to have our efforts in developing an exciting, high performance electric motorcycle recognised at the GQ Car Awards. There are significant challenges in bringing electric motorcycles to the mass market but the TE-1 is a crucial step towards Triumph’s development and understanding of electric vehicle technology."
The bike is a product of a unique collaboration between Triumph Motorcycles, Williams Advanced Engineering, Integral Powertrain Ltd, and WMG at the University of Warwick – and was funded by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles through Innovate UK.
It was set up to serve as an educational tool to allow Triumph to research into potential future electric motorcycles. TE-1 underwent four phases in its two-year development, reaching completion in July 2022.
With a throttle action and torque delivery map directly engineered from a Speed Triple 1200 RS, the track testing and dynamic rider assessments of the TE-1 prototype demonstrator deliver a level of handling that matches Triumph’s current triple cylinder internal combustion sports performance motorcycles.
Daytona 200 champion racer Brandon Paasch participated in the final testing phase, both in engine performance evaluation and also with the final set-up of the prototype through track testing. “The throttle response on the TE-1 is kind of incredible, it’s very torquey and when you first touch the throttle it’s instant power, which is obviously what I love as a motorcycle racer – I love when it’s super-torquey and picks up right away, so for me it was a really great experience” said Brandon. “I got to peg this thing all the way from zero to 100% throttle and it’s unbelievably quick, it pulls like crazy.”
