The Piaggio Group will start production of the Vespa Elettrica next month (September). The electric version of one of the world’s most iconic scooters will be produced at the Pontedera plant in the province of Pisa, the same one where Vespa first rolled off the line in the spring of 1946.
The vehicles can only be ordered from a dedicated website, starting from the beginning of October. Piaggio says the price will be in line with the “high-end bracket of the present Vespa range”.
Vespa Elettrica will be delivered “gradually from the end of October to reach full marketing in November to coincide with the 2018 Milan EICMA show”. Sales will begin in Europe before being extended to the United States and Asia starting from early 2019.
According to Piaggio: “Vespa Elettrica is but a first step in the direction of a new richness of interconnection between vehicles and human operators. Vespa Elettrica will be ready to be fitted out in the near future with solutions currently being developed for Gita, the robot currently on the drawing board at Piaggio Fast Forward in Boston. Gita – which features artificial intelligence systems both adaptive and responsive to all human input – will be entering production at the beginning of 2019. It will be aware of people and other vehicles operating in the vicinity, extend the operator’s ability to sense potential perils and opportunities, and provide real time mapping and traffic data that contributes to improving the design of transportation infrastructures in cities.
“Most of all, these new generation vehicles will thoroughly know their operators: they will recognise them without key fobs, anticipate their driving choices, interact with other devices and vehicles on the road and allow for degrees of personalisation that can barely be imagined today.”
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