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Two years ago, Triumph set out in a partnership with Williams Advanced Engineering, Integral Powertrain Ltd.’s e-Drive Division, and WMG at the University of Warwick to develop an electric motorcycle.

The group is funded from theUK government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) via Innovate UK, and today they have reached “Phase 2” of their four-phase development process.

Effectively, this means Triumph et al have developed an electric drivetrain package for a motorcycle, and to make this a little sexier, they are sharing their design sketches for the prototype bike that they plan to build in Phase 3 of the project.

It has been a decade since the KTM RC8 debuted at the Austrian brand’s answer to the superbike question. Perhaps ahead of its time, the RC8 and its progeny were never strong sellers for KTM, though the bike had its highlights (and struggles).

Now, the “Ready to Race” brand is obviously missing a full-faired superbike in its lineup, despite offering the naked “Beast” that is the KTM 1290 Super Duke R, which is a direct descendent of that RC8 project.

Our point? It’s high time that KTM got back into the superbike game, and while the Austrians have made it clear that they are not interested in revisiting the RC8 thesis, KTM is on the forefront of the electric motorcycle movement.

That brings us to these concept creation by Indian designer Mohit Solanki, who envisions an electric superbike from KTM.

I am, and forever will be, a complete sucker for a good rendition of Kaneda’s motorcycle from the cult Japanese anime movie Akira. Growing up as a kid (versus growing up as an adult, which is my current state), Akira‘s portrayal of motorcycles was one of the few things that got me interested in two-wheels.

I was a “car kid” growing up, with pictures of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche automobiles hanging on my walls. But, Kaneda’s bike was an influence too, and judging from the comments section when we post about this bike, it was a transformative machine for many others as well.

The Bimota story is about to get another chapter added to its pages, this time in the form of the the Bimota KB4 motorcycle.

It seems like a lifetime ago since we first heard about the KB4, though the bike was only briefly talked about at the EICMA show in Milan, just a handful of months ago.

An eventful week for the Italian brand, the headline for EICMA was Kawasaki’s purchasing of 49.9% of Bimota’s stock, and the unveiling of the Bimota Tesi H2.

While the Tesi H2 was on display for all to see, and was very provocative with its hub-center steering layout and supercharged inline-four engine, there was also a very quiet murmur about a second bike that would come from the business acquisition, the Bimota KB4.

While the Ducati Streetfighter V4 was the crown jewel of the Ducati unveiling event in Rimini last week, the items that everyone seems to be still talking about after the media launch are something else, they are the two concept bikes for the Scrambler range.

For those that didn’t watch the live stream, Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali presented two different Scrambler models that have the potential to go into production, an ADV bike and a supermoto.

Today we get another look at Norton’s 650cc project, now named the Norton Atlas. We have already seen concept sketches for this British scrambler, and now Norton is showing us some engineering renders. This is because the physical machine should debut later this year, at the NEC bike show in November.

Details are still vague and light, but we do know that the 650cc parallel-twin engine will piggyback off the work done for Norton’s V4 superbike. Essentially the using the V4 engine with its rear cylinders lopped off, the parallel-twin engine shares the same head, pistons, valves, etc as the V4 bike.

Several flavors of the Atlas are expected to come to market, with 70hp and 100hp naturally aspirated versions already planned, as well as a supercharged version that is said to clear 175hp.

When we first heard that Ducati was bringing back the Supersport line, we were excited. The original SuperSport wasn’t exactly the best selling model for the Italian brand, but Ducati created some loyal enthusiasts with the half-faired sport-touring machine.

The new Ducati Supersport does a good job of tapping into the ethos of the old model, but visually it draws too close to the Ducati 1299 Panigale Superbike, rather than the lines of yore.

Here, Oberdan Bezzi plays another one of his “what if” games, drawing an air-cooled Supersport model (based off the current Scrambler platform), complete with the more classic half-fairing design. 

One item we might expect to see at EICMA later this year is BMW Motorrad’s alleged “XDiavel killer” – as the German manufacturer is expected to continue expanding its lineup of motorcycles into new model segments.

Not much has been said about the rumor, since it was first published 16 months ago by Motorrad Magazine, but BMW has several options on the table for this power cruiser.

In this concept sketch, Wunderlich and Nicolas Petit have teamed up to create an “R1600C” motorcycle, with a new boxer engine design. Students of the BMW brand will surely remember the now defunct R1200C cruiser model.

I’m a sucker for a good concept sketch, and these Ducati motorcycle renders by Jakusa Design have been fueling my imagination lately, so I thought it would be worth sharing them on the site.

These concepts are of particular note because of how Ducati uses its v-twin engine designs to power multiple motorcycles, across multiple riding segments, which adds to Ducati’s reputation as a v-twin brand, but more importantly helps the Italian manufacturer control costs.

This is something that is about to get more interesting though as Ducati introduces its V4 engine, which as Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali told us, will also power multiple bikes as a platform engine.

A year ago, to the day, Norton announced that it was working on a street-going superbike that featured a 200hp, 1,200cc, V4 engine. Now, Norton confirms that news, saying that we will see the limited-production (200 units) machine later this fall. Yay.

On the bright side, Norton posted a concept drawing of the new bike to its Facebook page, giving us at least something new to whet our appetites on the new motorcycle.

The concept looks very similar to the sketch we saw last year, making today’s new a little bit about nothing. But, our friends at MotoFire report that Norton is still working on a 650cc project, which will debut later this year as well.