French engineering company Furion is back with another left-field idea. Meet the Furion F1, a hybrid motorcycle that combines conventional rear-wheel drive with a hub-centre motor in the front wheel – because if you’re going hybrid, why play it safe?
At the heart of the F1 is Furion’s Eversor hybrid system. The standout feature is a hub-mounted motor/generator in the front wheel that does double duty. Under acceleration, it can deliver a claimed 300 Nm of torque at the wheel and add around 20 bhp to the bike’s total output, effectively giving the F1 a two-wheel-drive punch when you twist the throttle.
The clever bit happens when you get on the brakes. Instead of wasting energy, the front hub motor switches roles and becomes a generator, recovering up to 27 per cent of braking energy and feeding it back into the battery. It’s a neat solution to a long-standing problem in motorcycle regeneration. On most bikes, heavy braking unloads the rear wheel, limiting how much energy can be recovered. Furion flips that logic by harvesting energy from the front – exactly where grip increases under braking.
This isn’t Furion’s first hybrid experiment. Back in 2017, the company teased its M1, a rotary-powered naked with a hybrid twist, but it never made it past the concept stage. This time, the F1 is reportedly built around Yamaha’s proven MT-07 platform, a move that could make the project more realistic and more affordable.
If it makes production, the Furion F1 could be one of the most intriguing hybrid motorcycles yet.
Images – Furion / David Piolé
