The Concept 1 from Zooz shatters the very perception of what a motorcycle should look like. Designed with the appearance of the skeleton of an e-bike, the Concept 1 feels like someone took a motorcycle and Marie Kondo’d the heck out of it… but within it sits a powerful 72-volt QS Motor, a controller, and under-slung battery pack jammed with Samsung 35E cells that allows the Concept 1 to travel at speeds of 60mph while weighing a mere 85lbs.
The Concept 1 is literally a design hybrid, with a front, seat, and back styled to look like a motorcycle and wheels to match… but with the most bare-basics metal-piping frame in the middle. “The purpose is to challenge the thinking of the audience,” says Zooz co-founder Chris Zahner. “It’s a bit of a poke in the eye, to force you to consider something new. The amazing thing about electric bikes is how simple they are. Motors, heat exchangers, exhaust systems and gas tanks are requisite masses on combustion motorcycles. But the electric motorcycle can leave a whole lot more room for interpretation, by minimizing the number of elements necessary.”
The result is a two-wheeler that is, on paper, an electric motorcycle… but visually challenges the very notion of what an electric motorcycle’s design language should be. For Zooz, the Concept 1 is just a one-off prototype that was designed to work as a proof-of-concept. Now that Zahner knows that it’s possible to create something so ground-breakingly minimal, he hits at more viable, consumer-ready models in the pipeline… although I’m not sure that the world is ready for something this deceptively thin and game-changing! What do you think?!
Designer: Zooz
