Last year at the EICMA Milan Milan Motorcycle Show, I stumbled across a novel-looking vehicle known as the Ponie P2. Described as a van replacement, the 60 mph (100 km/h) electric motorbike sports a huge cargo case below the seat and was prepping for production at the time. Now a year later, I caught up with the company at the same show to learn how the Ponie P2 is now preparing to hit the road.
The company behind the bike, PNY, has spent most of the past year finalizing its production path and is ready to start several pilot programs, including with DHL and the local postal service, among others who have signed up to snag some of the first 50 Ponie P2s that just rolled off the production line.
With 400L (105 gallons) of storage space between the center cargo area and an optional rear trunk, the Ponie P2 truly is just about as close to a “van replacer” as you can get on two wheels. There are some larger four-wheeled cargo e-bikes out there, but they aren’t as fast or as nimble, limiting their use to bike lanes and in areas where sidewalk parking is met with a blind eye.
The Ponie P2 might not carry as much cargo as a Sprinter van, but it could likely do an entire route of mail deliveries while maintaining the same lane-splitting and parking advantages of a motorcycle – not to mention the ability to reach minimum highway speeds.
The bike is also just about as stable as could be, sporting its large 6.7 kWh CATL battery as a flat pack below the main cargo area. That low center of gravity is further aided by the hub motor keeping the motor weight at mere axle height. It won’t do the unsprung weight any favors, but a delivery motorbike isn’t exactly performance territory, either.
The P2 even has quite a good range per charge, quoted at 150 km (93 miles) when traveling at city speeds of 35 km/h (22 mph). Hopping on the highway at top speed is sure to drop that range figure, but it’s also hard to get the mail in the box accurately at highway speeds, so riders are going to have to slow down eventually.
The PNY Ponie P2 seems to straddle the line between motorcycles and scooters, offering seating of the former with utility of the latter. A large 7-inch TFT color display and ABS brakes offer the kind of modern motorcycle features many riders have come to expect, and there’s even a smaller glove box cargo area with an included USB charging port (ideal for the rider’s own personal belongings so they aren’t mixing with everyone else’s packages and postcards).
The company was also showing off built-in safety technology from RiderDome, a startup that uses AI-based computer vision and sensors to provide 360-degree threat detection specifically for motorcyclists.
The same frame is designed to integrate with multiple cargo accessories, including the large center cargo box seen on the DHL bike as well as multiple smaller boxes such as those used by food delivery companies.
I’m hoping to test out one of the first 50 PNY Ponie P2 bikes that will be used in the upcoming pilot programs with DHL and other customers. For now, I only got a static test at the booth (above), but the bikes feel strangely normal when you’re sitting on them. They may look like a stretch limousine of the motorcycle world, but they just feel like a naked roadster with a comfortable foot-forward seating position – at least, at rest.
The jury is still out on how they’ll perform in the wild, but PNY has high hopes that more cities around the world will soon be replacing lane-blocking cargo vans with lane-splitting cargo motorbikes like these.
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