Zero and Yamaha Take Electric Motorcycles Mainstream at EICMA 2026 in Milan

Zero Motorcycles marked 20 years in business at EICMA 2026 in Milan on 3 November with its widest set of announcements yet. The headline item, per Electrek, is Project Ventura. It is a lightweight street motorcycle aimed at riders moving up from e-bikes and small e-motos, not at buyers of full-size performance machines.

Zero is targeting a price below $8,000 for Ventura. Electrek reports a powertrain producing more than 20 kW (27 hp) of peak power. It also cites a sustained top speed of 65 mph (105 km/h) and a momentary maximum of 81 mph (130 km/h).

That split between sustained and momentary speed matters more than the spec sheet suggests. The bike can reach highway speeds in bursts, but Zero is not promising long highway stretches. The company quotes an estimated real-world range of 93 miles (150 km). It has not published battery capacity, which makes the range figure hard to check independently. What is confirmed: onboard Level 2 charging, standard ABS, Bluetooth connectivity and a chassis built to take a passenger.

A crowded electric booth in Milan

Zero did not stop at one model. It also announced a street-legal version of its XE electric dirt bike for the US market (it was previously street-legal only in Europe). It showed the LS3 electric scooter for Europe, a redesigned smartphone app and more detail on its upcoming DC fast-charging system, according to the same Electrek report. The company framed Ventura explicitly as a gateway product. A quoted statement from Zero argues the bike should be a natural next step for riders coming from e-bikes.

The broader show pointed the same direction. Yamaha unveiled the 2027 NMAX E, a 125cc-equivalent electric scooter built on its new compact eAxle drive unit. Electrek reports 6.7 kW (9 hp) nominal power, 7.5 kW (10 hp) peak, 33.3 Nm of torque and a centrally mounted 3.5 kWh battery. That pack gives up to 104 km (65 miles) on the WMTC Class 1 cycle. It uses a fixed pack rather than removable batteries, offset by an onboard 800W charger that takes roughly 5.5 hours for a full charge. Pricing and exact market availability have not been announced.

ReBake Motors, founded by Karl Ytterborn after eight years at CAKE, showed the Abler. Electrek reports two versions. The Abler45 is an EU L1e-B moped at €3,990 including VAT with a 45 km/h top speed. The Abler80 sits at €4,990 in the A1 light motorcycle class, above 80 km/h. Both use removable 2 kWh LFP batteries weighing 17 kg each. The Abler80 carries two for 4 kWh and a claimed 114 km of range.

Four wheels, same show

The microcar sector had its own news. Eli Electric Vehicles brought the ZERO MX to Milan, its first L7e-class vehicle. It has a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph), against 45 km/h on the original L6e version. Electrek reports up to 20 kW (27 hp) peak power, a 14.4 kWh LFP battery and a claimed 200 km (124 miles) of range in the same 2.25-metre body. A limited Race Edition adds a hidden Turbo mode triggered by holding the hazard light button. The MX was first teased on 1 November.

Not every story from the sector is expansion. Electrek reported on 30 October that LiveWire, Harley-Davidson's electric motorcycle brand, warned it may not survive. CAKE itself collapsed after failing to secure additional funding, a history Electrek recounted in its ReBake coverage on 3 November. Those two cases sit awkwardly beside the launch energy in Milan. They are the reason the new entrants are competing on price and utility rather than performance.

There is a wider context for the shift. Electrek argued on 1 November that electric motorcycles will replace gasoline ones, but not in the way riders expect. It reported the same day that Honda's decades-long dominance of motorcycles is being tested by electric bikes. Meanwhile the Chinese heavy truck market shows how fast cost parity can move a segment. Electrek reported on 2 November that electric trucks reached 50.3% of China's heavy truck sales in September, 33,100 units. That was up 37% year on year while the overall market shrank 21%.

For Zero, the near-term test is simpler. Ventura's battery capacity is unpublished, its range estimate is unverified, and a sub-$8,000 target is not a price. Yamaha has not priced the NMAX E at all. The hardware is real; the numbers that decide whether these bikes sell are still mostly missing.