Kawasaki appears to have at least one more supercharged motorcycle under development.
It’s well known that the company is working on another supercharged engine, and now reports from Europe suggest that Kawasaki has registered a number of trademarks for names including “Ninja R2” and “Ninja R2R”.
Those names tie very closely with the naming protocol of Kawasaki’s current supercharged models – the Ninja H2 and H2R.
The rumours of another supercharged bike from Kawasaki make a lot of sense.
The H2 is too expensive for the masses – its pricing starts at $34,000 in Australia.
Kawasaki developed its own supercharger for the H2 rather than use an existing unit from another supplier, and the amount of resources thrown into development is hard to justify for just two models that will not sell in large numbers.
At the Milan show last year, the company showed drawings of two other supercharged concepts, reinforcing the company’s commitment to using forced induction engines in future models.
Kawasaki president Kenji Tomida said at the time that the supercharged engine technology of the H2 was always intended to be scalable to suit other applications.
The company then unveiled its “Balanced Supercharged Engine”, a second-generation supercharged four-cylinder engine, at the Tokyo Show last year.
That all points towards another supercharged model, possibly as early as late this year.
The inclusion of the “R2R” also suggests there will be a high performance version as well.
The capacity of the new supercharged engine is widely speculated to be about 800cc, which should allow it to match the performance of a normally aspirated 1000cc engine.
Kawasaki has some freedom in choosing the engine’s capacity because they don’t need to consider regulations for racing as the supercharged engine will not be allowed.
Along with the “R2” names, Kawasaki also trademarked the names Ninja E2 and E2R, a clue that the the company may also be considering an electric bike project in the future.
Star Wars fans are apparently hoping for an R2D2 model.