Would Ducati Build This Electric Motorcycle?

Spanish designer Miguel Angel Bahri imagined a Porsche-inspired electric motorcycle concept last year, basing his vision on the iconic German automaker’s masterful 911 series and its evolved lineage. He called his concept the ‘Porsche 618’ – it was highly detailed, and looked like a realistic option for production.

“Inspired by the Flat-Six engine, the inspiration came to my mind in the way of thinking in a low center of gravity. Center-hub steering was a key element to get the right balance between design surfaces and mechanical features, allowing me to put heavy visual parts such as the direction components, front and rear arms and even springs configurations below the middle of the motorcycle.”

“After this, the idea was how to relate a sporty silhouette feeling, typical from Porsche, without losing lightness of the body, this because as a real power cruiser motorcycle, it should have a good range/performance ratio and the +20 KwH battery has a prominent volume to take into consideration.”

Bahri’s concept seeks to extend Lamborghini/Audi/Volkswagen’s ownership of Ducati into a new direction: they’re owned by an automotive juggernaut, is his design the mental springboard Ducati’s engineers need to hop on the electric motorcycle train? Ducati is hedging its bets regarding plans for e-bike development, while Harley-Davidson has aggressively moved forward, announcing the opening of a Silicon Valley-based engineering outpost to focus exclusively on electric vehicle development in Ducati North America’s own backyard.

Bahri is no conceptual design slouch. He was part of a five-person team to collaborate on a Tesla T1 LeMans 2030 concept for his IED Barcelona transportation design class, a reflection of the e-chops he introduced to the world with his Porsche 618 in early 2017.

“Color combinations were a key feature to reduce visual weight from the main body,” Bahri said. “With this I could make body partitions but also I put some elements into perspective to gain more importance on top of others.”

“In the final design, the two main liquid metal silver surfaces make the impression of ‘floating’, as the battery CFRP case serves as a background for this element, taking advantage of its darker-matte color to reduce visual weight,” he added. “The futuristic details such as the headlights, taillights and the trunk aperture system complete the (overall) design of the 618.”