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The first electric Vespa costs more than $7,000

The first electric Vespa costs more than $7,000

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Coming to Europe this winter

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Photo: Piaggio

Two years after it was announced, the first all-electric Vespa scooter is about to go on sale in Europe, and parent company Piaggio has finally shared the starting price: €6,390, or a little over $7,300. That’s nearly twice as expensive as some of the cheapest gas-powered Vespas. Preorders are available now in Europe ahead of the scooter’s ship date later this year, while customers in the US and China will have to wait until early 2019.

The Vespa Elettrica, as it’s called, has about 62 miles of range, takes about four hours to fully charge from a standard wall outlet, and the battery pack should last for about 10 years’ worth of riding. It offers peak power of 4kW, or about 5.2 horsepower, which is roughly the same as a 50cc scooter (though with about three times less range than its gas-powered counterpart). There’s also a 4.3-inch TFT color display in between the handlebars.

As quick as a 50cc gas scooter, but with a third of the range

Piaggio didn’t announce pricing or any new information regarding the Elettrica X, a hybrid version of the electric scooter that the company teased at last year’s Milan Motorcycle show. The Elettrica X is supposed to be, by and large, the same thing as the all-electric version, but with a small gas generator that can be used to extend the range up to about 124 miles. Here’s hoping the company has more information ready by the 2018 Milan Motorcycle Show, which starts in one month.

The electric Vespa felt more like a rare addition to the scooter scene when it was announced in 2016. But in the time it’s taken Piaggio to come to market, a number of electric scooters have hit the streets, from both startups and incumbents. Chinese startup Niu (not to be confused with the electric car company NIO) has launched a full lineup of electric scooters in its home country. Taiwan’s largest maker of two-wheelers, Kymco, finally bought into electric drivetrains this year with a scooter that uses swappable batteries. Yamaha and Honda have partnered on the development of an electric scooter, too. And 2015 CES darling Gogoro has spread its electric scooters, which can be both bought and shared, to a number of different countries in Asia and Europe.