Vespa's first electric scooter goes on sale from October: Check price, features, other details

Vespa Elettrica, the first electric scooter from Vespa, will go into production in September and will be available for sale in Europe from October. The first Piaggio Group product to adopt 'innovative machine-man interconnectivity solutions' can be booked only online, said the group.

"Vespa Elettrica will then be gradually put on the market starting from the end of October to reach full marketing in November to coincide with the 2018 Milan EICMA show. Sales will begin in Europe to then be extended to the United States and Asia starting from early 2019," said the group.

The scooter will be manufactured at the Pontedera plant of the Pisa province. This is the same plant where Vespa first rolled off the line in the spring of 1946, said the group. The scooter is an electric version of the first retro Vespa scooter launched in 1946.

(In pic above: Retro Vespa)

Features:
"Vespa Elettrica is but a first step for the Piaggio Group in the direction of a new richness of interconnection between vehicles and human operators," said the automaker. 

The scooter will be fitted out in the near future with advanced AI solutions Piaggio is developing for its robot Gita.

"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 (which will be entering production at the beginning of 2019), such as artificial intelligence systems both adaptive and responsive to all human input," said the group.

The artificial intelligence system will enable the vehicle to sense potential perils (accidents) and will be able to recognise their operators.

"They 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 recognize them without key fobs, anticipate their driving choices, interact with other devices and vehicles on the road and allow for degrees of personalization that can barely be imagined today," it said.

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The scooter will have a maximum range of 62 miles. Vespa claims that it can be charged in four hours and its performance will outsmart a standard 50cc scooter. Vespa says if you maintain four-hour charge sessions, the battery will last 1,000 charge cycles which is approximately 10 years of use.

As per reports, its top speed will be around 19mph. 

Pricing:
As per the pricing is concerned, Piaggio said, "The price will be in line with the high-end bracket of the Vespa range presently being marketed". 

As per reports, the price may be around $7,000.