Electric motorbike with intelligent jacket connecting rider with road hailed as ‘most advanced ever’

Bike designed by British engineers comes with helmet that projects sat-nav and ancillary graphics into rider's visor

The Arc Vector is priced at £90,000 and features a Human Machine Interface (SWNS)

An electric motorbike which comes with a jacket that digitally connects the rider with the road has been tipped as one of the “most advanced ever made”.

Built by a team of British engineers, the motorbike was launched at Milan’s EICMA Motorcycle show on 6 November.

The Arc Vector is priced at £90,000 and features a Human Machine Interface (HMI), a Heads-Up Display (HUD) helmet and an intelligent biker jacket.

It’s the first motorbike model to be produced by Arc, a team of engineering specialists based in Coventry.

The Zenith helmet that comes with the bike has been designed in collaboration with British company Hedon and features speedo, sat-nav and ancillary graphics, which are projected onto the rider’s visor.

A live rear-view camera is also encased in the helmet, giving the rider the ability to see what’s behind them.

The bespoke jacket, called Origin, has HMI applied to the armoured ride-wear as well as audio-type haptic amplifiers, which work like a smart phone’s vibration notifications.

The Origin jacket contains amplifiers, which work like a smart phone’s vibration notifications (SWNS)

The amplifiers on the jacket vibrate to alert of a potential hazard and provide dynamic performance-based feedback.

Arc’s founder Mark Truman, who previously worked at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “We felt that there was more one could get out of motorcycling which no one was tapping into.

“This is about using technology to strip back the experience of riding a bike.

‘’The HUD and haptics of the helmet and jacket work in tandem with the Vector bike to remove distractions and emphasise the joy of riding.”

The Zenith helmet projects sat-nav and ancillary graphics into the rider’s visor (SWNS ) (SWNS)

The Origin jacket, which is tailored in collaboration with English designer Knox, can play music and tell the rider how close to the limit of the motorcycle’s capabilities they are.

Arc says that the Vector model has the best power-to-weight ratio of any electric motorbike in its class.

Arc’s staff have worked in senior positions within Aston Martin, KTM, Ducati, Triumph, Jaguar Land Rover, MotoGP and Formula One. They’ve designed vehicles for James Bond movies, emergency rescue units and electric hypercar companies.

“With Vector, we’ve set out to build the best performance electric motorcycle,” Mr Truman said.

“With electric vehicles in general, the powertrain weighs a lot. This really can’t be avoided if you want capacity, distance and performance.

“So, it was about stripping everything back and using a lot of exotic, lightweight materials, such as carbon-fibre.

“The chassis and battery module had to be one, and because of this approach we’ve been able to reduce the weight as much as possible to achieve the performance we wanted.

“The design brief was: If the term ‘cafe racer’ was going to be coined in ten years’ time, what would that look like?

“We are building the Vector for people who are on a journey, and we want people to continue taking those journeys in the future when the world’s use of internal combustion engines is restricted.”

SWNS