HONDA WN7 - Learn Now. Profit Later.

Honda's boldest motorcycle in years... or the beginning of something much bigger?

Words: Ben Grayson

Photography: Get Ben Riding

The Shocking Truth About The WN7

The Honda WN7 is probably one of the most controversial motorcycles Honda has launched in years.

Not because it's ugly.

Not because it's slow.

Not because Honda have built a bad bike.

It's controversial because for the same money you could ride out of a dealership on a Honda CB1000 Hornet SP, Yamaha MT-09 SP, Triumph Street Triple RS, Ducati Monster or any number of genuinely brilliant naked bikes. So why on earth would anyone buy this? The answer isn't as straightforward as you might think. Because before you dismiss the WN7 as another eco experiment designed to save the planet one silent commute at a time, you first have to accept one very simple fact. Electric motorcycles are not trying to replace petrol bikes. Not yet. And that's probably the biggest misconception surrounding them.

Hear me out.

A Brief History Lesson

The first electric motorcycles worth taking seriously began appearing around 2013, led by American manufacturer Zero. They were genuinely quick, surprisingly well built and ridiculously cheap to run, but they were also expensive, took an age to charge and the residuals dropped like a grand piano falling out of a tenth-floor window.

The Zero S was one of the first of it's kind in 2013

Then came 2016.

The UK Government introduced a £1,500 Plug-in Motorcycle Grant, encouraging riders to give electrification a chance. Almost overnight manufacturers like Zero, Energica, Super Soco and even Harley-Davidson started investing properly in electric motorcycles.

For a while it looked like this was the future.

Fast forward ten years and the landscape has changed dramatically. Government grants have disappeared. Insurance premiums climbed. Finance companies became nervous about residual values and buyers lost confidence. The electric motorcycle market never exploded in the way many predicted, leaving plenty of riders wondering whether they'd bought into a dead technology.

I've ridden most of those bikes over the last decade.

Watch my Zero SRF and SRS video reviews.

Some were exceptional. Others felt like unfinished science projects. But every single one left me asking the same question.

"Who's actually going to buy one?"

Which brings us neatly to Honda.

Learn Now. Profit Later.

Honda rarely rush anything. They didn't invent the superbike; they sat back, listened to what riders really wanted, and built the Fireblade. Perhaps one of the most useable road-going superbikes to this day.

They weren't first with adventure bikes, DCT gearboxes or hybrids either, but when they eventually arrived they were usually amongst the best engineered products on the market. The WN7 follows exactly the same philosophy.

While most of us are worrying about what we're riding this weekend, manufacturers like Honda are planning product cycles ten or twenty years in advance. In fact, the bike you're looking at today first appeared as a concept back in 2022. Honda knows the UK isn't the centre of the motorcycling universe. It sells motorcycles across Europe, Asia and North America, where legislation, infrastructure and customer demand are all moving at different speeds. Whether electric motorcycles become mainstream in Britain next year or in ten years' time is almost irrelevant.

Honda simply can't afford to arrive late.

The WN7 isn't just another electric motorcycle, it's Honda learning today so it can profit tomorrow. And that's actually a pretty smart strategy.

The Price

Let's get the painful bit out of the way. The WN7 costs £12,999 on the road, with no government grants, no hidden fees, no clever accounting. That's simply what it costs.

Ordinarily that would be enough to stop the conversation before it even began. For the same money you could buy almost any middleweight naked bike you care to mention, many of them considerably faster, lighter and capable of travelling more than twice as far on a tank of fuel.

If that's where your thought process stopped after reading the price, you're probably not Honda's target customer.

But here's the interesting bit.

Honda clearly believes in this motorcycle. Buy one on PCP and the guaranteed future value (GFV) sits at roughly half its original retail price after three years**. That's Honda effectively backing its own product and telling finance companies, "Don't worry, we'll stand behind it." Given how volatile electric residual values have been over the last decade, that's actually a bigger statement than the motorcycle itself.

Honda Finance PCP (Personal Contract Purchase)		Honda Finance HP (Hire Purchase)
RRP (OTR)	£12,999.00	RRP (OTR)	£12,999.00
Deposit	£1,000.00	Deposit	£1,000.00
Term	36 Months	Term	48 Months
Annual mileage	4,000 miles	Annual mileage	NA
Monthly repayment	£230.06	Monthly repayment	£280.22
**GFV (Garanteed future value)	£5,455.38	GFV (Garanteed future value)	NA
APR %	5.9%	APR %	5.9%

After the first year you'll also pay just £27 a year in road tax. Charge it overnight on a cheap EV tariff and a full charge costs around 75 pence. Those numbers matter.

Because while £13,000 initially feels like a lot of money, Honda isn't trying to convince you the WN7 is cheap to buy. It's trying to convince you it's cheap to own, whether it succeeds depends entirely on how you intend to use it.

Who's It For?

This isn't a CB750. It isn't trying to be.

Nor is it a replacement for your Sunday morning blast through Wales.

Instead, the WN7 makes sense if you're someone who commutes around 40 miles a day, has somewhere to charge at home, enjoys new technology and is open-minded enough to judge a motorcycle on what it is rather than what it isn't. If you're already mentally comparing it to a Street Triple RS or an MT-09 SP, you've missed the point. The WN7 isn't trying to beat those bikes, it's trying to answer a completely different question.

Are there gaps in the market that can be fulfilled by a middle sized electric motorcycle?

Only one way to find out.

Let's ride.

Let's forget the politics for a minute and go back to being bikers. The beauty of putting a helmet on is that nobody knows who's underneath it, so you needn't worry about the perceived embarrassment of arriving at your local bike meet on the two-wheeled equivalent of a Nissan Leaf. In reality, quite the opposite happens, people are curious.

The WN7 doesn't scream "electric". If anything, it looks like something straight out of Tron. Imagine a Lightcycle had a baby with the futuristic folding motorcycle from Oblivion and you'd be somewhere close.

Honda has resisted the temptation to make it look like an engineering experiment. There's just enough theatre from the stacked LED headlights, transparent winglets and single-sided swingarm to make people stop and look, without disappearing into science fiction.

It's a genuinely handsome motorcycle.

More importantly, it still looks like a motorcycle, which matters.

The first surprise is just how narrow it feels. Electric motorcycles don't have an inline-four, V-twin or parallel twin dictating the width of the chassis, so Honda has been able to package everything incredibly tightly. It's noticeably slimmer than most middleweight nakeds, making filtering through traffic ridiculously easy.

Then you notice the weight.

At 217 kg, the WN7 isn't light. It's around 25kg heavier than a CB750 Hornet and only six kilos lighter than a Zero S. Push it around the garage and you'll know exactly where those extra kilos are. However Honda have answered this with the WN7's 'walking speed mode' giving you a low speed forward and reverse option to help manoeuvre out of tight spots.

Ride it and they almost disappear.

Honda has concentrated the battery mass incredibly low in the chassis, so although the scales suggest one thing, your brain tells you something entirely different. The bike tips into corners willingly and never develops that horrible pendulum sensation some heavy motorcycles suffer from at walking pace.

Yes, you can still feel the mass. No, it never becomes intimidating.

Honda has kept things refreshingly simple, up front are 43mm Showa upside-down forks, while the rear uses a preload-adjustable Showa shock mounted directly to the single-sided swingarm.

There are no endless electronic menus, no suspension modes, no compression adjusters you'll never touch. Just suspension that works. Honda hasn't published spring rates, but it's clear the bike has been developed around its additional mass. I'm a shade under 98 kg and the rear suspension is a little on the firm side, but I expect some pre-load adjustments might solve this. Even so, it remains composed over poor road surfaces without and doesn't feel wallowy, helped enormously by that incredibly low centre of gravity.

The tyres raised an eyebrow. Instead of following the trend of fitting ever wider rubber, Honda has opted for a 150-section Pirelli Diablo Rosso III rear tyre, which I initially questioned.

Then I rode the bike.

The steering is beautifully neutral.

The WN7 falls into corners effortlessly and changes direction with far less effort than its 217 kg kerb weight would suggest. It's one of those rare occasions where the engineering team clearly ignored the marketing department and fitted the tyre the bike actually needed rather than the one that looked best in the brochure. Good call.

Climb aboard and the WN7 immediately feels familiar. The 800mm seat height means most riders will have both feet comfortably on the floor, while the absence of a traditional fuel tank gives the riding position an unusual openness. At 5'10" with what can only be described as optimistic leg length, I felt like I was sitting on the motorcycle rather than in it.

The bars are wide without being excessive, the pegs sit naturally beneath you and the riding position is almost perfectly upright with just enough forward lean to remind you this is still a motorcycle rather than a scooter. If I'm honest, battery capacity isn't the thing that will shorten your ride. But the seat will.

Whilst the riding position works the seat is firm and narrow so your backside will be ready for a break by the time you reach the max range of the WN7. Let's hope there's a comfort seat accessory option!

Honda's familiar 5-inch TFT display has been adapted for electric life, displaying battery percentage, remaining range, regeneration settings and riding modes alongside the usual information you'd expect. Everything is intuitive. Nothing feels intimidating. Even the keyless ignition is borrowed from the Fireblade, although unlike the Fireblade you won't be pulling the key out every time you stop for fuel.

Small victories.

Starting an electric motorcycle still feels oddly anticlimactic.

I half expected JARVIS to wake up, tell me the weather forecast and ask whether I'd like today's route uploaded to the navigation.

Instead...

Nothing. No idle. No vibration. No exhaust note. Just silence. Lift the side stand. Select Drive. And suddenly it's alive.

It's an incredibly strange sensation the first time you experience it. The only indication the motorcycle is ready to launch is the fact it'll disappear down the road if you accidentally twist the throttle.

Houston, We Have A Problem

Here's my problem with electric motorcycles.

They're addictive.

Not because they're fast (they can be).

Because they're instantly fast. The WN7 covers its first 50 metres in just 3.9 seconds, which is proper sports bike territory, thanks to more than 100 Nm of torque available from zero rpm.

Every set of traffic lights becomes an opportunity to behave like a twelve-year-old. You'll find yourself giggling like an idiot as you leave virtually everything behind when the lights turn green. Thank goodness for smoked visors.

The acceleration is seamless. No clutch. No gear changes. No interruption. Just one relentless shove towards the horizon that never seems to pause for breath. It's hilariously entertaining... right up until you meet the 80 mph limiter. It's also the quickest way imaginable to destroy your battery range.

Thankfully, the WN7 is equipped with equally capable radial four-pot NISSIN calipers to scrub off speed when you need them. In Eco mode, though, I barely touched the brakes at all. The regenerative braking is so strong that simply rolling off the throttle feels as though you're lightly dragging the rear brake. If you've never ridden an electric motorcycle before, it's a sensation that takes a little getting used to. Initially it feels almost as if the rear brake is binding, complete with a faint electric whine that's surprisingly reminiscent of riding with worn rear brake pads. Within a few miles, however, it becomes second nature, and you start using the throttle almost like a one-pedal driving system, rarely needing the brakes except for the final few metres before coming to a stop.

Switching from Sport into Eco immediately softens the throttle response, but don't confuse softer with slow. The WN7 still pulls with surprising urgency, just without encouraging quite so much juvenile behaviour. The most impressive thing isn't how quickly it accelerates, but how approachable it is. Despite producing over 100 Nm of torque, there's no wheelspin, no unexpected wheelies and no drama. You can be unbelievably clumsy with the throttle and the bike simply gets on with the job.

Filtering through Northampton traffic highlighted both my favourite and least favourite thing about the WN7. I could hear everything. Birds. Conversations. Other traffic. Even my own thoughts... worryingly. It's strangely relaxing.

The lack of engine heat, clutch work and constant gear changes makes commuting feel almost therapeutic... until a pedestrian steps into the road because they haven't heard you. Drivers drift across lanes. Dogs look confused. Electric cars now generate artificial noise at low speed for exactly this reason, and I genuinely believe electric motorcycles need something similar.

Honda, if you're reading this, please fix this!

WN7 (Full Power)

• Max Power: 50kW

• Max. Torque: 100 Nm

• Acceleration: 3.9s (0-50m)

• Max. Speed: 80mph

WN7 11kW (Learner Legal)

• Max Power: 11.2kW

• Max. Torque: 100 Nm

• Acceleration: 5.0s (0-50m)

• Max. Speed: 74mph

Range Anxiety

Let's address the elephant in the charging station - The official WMTC range is 87 miles.

Cue the internet comments.

"I can ride further than that before breakfast."

"My Fireblade does 180 miles to a tank."

"What happens if I want to ride to Scotland?"

They're all fair questions but they're also the wrong questions. Nobody criticises a Ferrari because it can't carry a washing machine. Likewise, criticising the WN7 because it won't tour Europe misses the point entirely. Honda hasn't built a continent-crossing adventure bike. It's built a motorcycle aimed squarely at commuters and urban riders, where the average daily mileage is a fraction of its maximum range.

Range can be extended by using the regen function, using ECO mode or by limiting your speed electronically on the dash.

That doesn't mean range isn't important.

It absolutely is.

It just depends how honest you are about the riding you actually do. On test 'fun riding' in sport consumes on average 1.7% of battery per mile giving an estimated range of 59 miles. Riding in ECO mode through a mixture of A/B roads I achieve 1% per mile average giving an theoretical range of 100 miles.

The Difference Between Theory and Reality

Honda quotes 87 miles under the WMTC test cycle.

In the real world?

It depends entirely on your right wrist.

Spend the day carving through B-roads in Sport mode and you'll probably be looking for a charger after 60–70 miles. Ride sensibly through town and it's entirely realistic to see close to the official figure, which is no different to a petrol bike. Manufacturers don't quote fuel economy based on bouncing off the rev limiter in every gear. Why should electric motorcycles be judged differently?

Ironically, I found myself riding more smoothly than usual and that's not because I was worried about making it home...

...But because the bike almost encouraged it.

The instant torque means there's no need to chase revs, no need to work a gearbox and no reward for riding aggressively. It's a strangely calming experience. The bike's display provides you with real-time updates on expected range, adapting it for significant changes in riding style. Ride fast. Range drops. Ride smooth. Range comes back.

Charging

Charging is one area where Honda deserves genuine praise. Unlike some rivals, the WN7 supports CCS2 rapid charging, meaning you can plug into the same public chargers used by many electric cars. Find a suitable rapid charger and you can take the battery from around 20% to 80% in roughly half an hour. No you can't remove the battery without being fried or a hoist.

Plug into a home wallbox and a full charge takes a couple of hours.

Use a domestic three-pin socket and you're looking at around five hours.

Would I want to stop every hour on a touring holiday to recharge? Absolutely not. Would I happily plug it in every evening at home and never visit a petrol station again?

Actually...

Yes.

The WN7 comes with a conventional home charging cable with the fast charge lead coming in at just over £300. This is all well and good but the WN7 being as compact as it is, has no storage space for a charge lead. Competitors like Zero utilise the lack of a fuel tank as a handy space for your packup and essential charge lead. This is a bit of an oversight, I suspect the 15ltr tail pack marketed as an accessory will be a popular addition for most buyers.

No storage here. Just be careful not to lead on the cover while riding - it opens into the wind.

The Cost Nobody Talks About

This is where electric motorcycles begin to make sense. If you're fortunate enough to have an overnight electricity tariff costing around 7p per kilowatt-hour, filling the WN7's battery costs roughly 75 pence.

Seventy-five pence.

That's less than a supermarket meal deal. Cheaper than a Mars Bar!

Less than the average biker spends on chain lube each month.

Let's compare it with the fuel efficient 500cc Honda Rebel. It'll comfortably travel almost twice as far on a tank, but filling it costs around £16. Over a year of commuting, assuming around 15,000 miles, the WN7 could save well over £1,000 in fuel alone.

Those savings are real. They aren't marketing. They're maths.

The problem is that fuel savings alone don't make a £13,000 motorcycle suddenly feel cheap. Even saving a thousand pounds a year takes a long time to claw back the premium over an equivalent petrol bike. That's the hurdle Honda still has to overcome.

The savings don't stop there. There's no oil and filter to change. No air filter. No coolant. No chain and no valve clearance checks every 6,000 miles. As partners go, the WN7 is very low maintenance.

The Essex Test

Every motorcycle I test has to answer one simple question.

Could I actually live with it?

For me, that means a regular trip from Northamptonshire to Essex to see my children.

It's a journey of roughly a hundred miles each way, almost entirely dual carriageway and motorway. The WN7 could do it. Just not without planning. I'd almost certainly need to stop and recharge somewhere around Cambridge before completing the journey.

That's the reality.

Wanting to avoid long stints of motorway I opt for slower 50/60mph A-Roads that suit the WN7 well. The key to extended range with this bike is maintaining speed and using regenerative braking to push charge back into the bike and my route does this. Determined not to stop, I rolled up to my destination with just 2% battery remaining after 84.2 miles. I'll admit it - I was sweating. Not because the bike had done anything wrong, but because I'd spent the last few miles wondering whether I was about to become the first motorcycle reviewer to maroon himself on a test. The important thing, though, is that it made the journey. Next time I'll leave home knowing it can, and that's the mental shift petrol riders need to make.

One thing worth bearing in mind is that, like all electric vehicles, battery performance isn't immune to the weather. A freezing January commute is unlikely to deliver the same range as a warm July afternoon, so if you're planning to use a WN7 all year round it's sensible to build a little extra headroom into your journey. It wasn't something I experienced during my test, but it's a reality of EV ownership rather than a criticism unique to Honda.

If your riding regularly involves long motorway distances, there are still better tools for the job. A CB750 Hornet or perhaps an NT1100 both simply cover distance with less compromise.

But here's the interesting part.

Those journeys account for a tiny percentage of my riding.

The other ninety percent?

Commuting. Popping into town. Running errands. Quick evening rides. For those jobs, the WN7 makes a compelling case. So perhaps the real question isn't whether the WN7 can replace every motorcycle. It's whether it needs to.

It's Not the Future... Yet

The WN7 answers a question I've been asked countless times over the years:

"Does anyone make a fully automatic motorcycle... not a scooter?"

Working in the motorcycle industry, I've lost count of how many times that question has come up, particularly from new riders looking for a learner-legal option. Well, now the answer is yes. The WN7 is available in a 125cc-equivalent model that's A1 licence compliant and, at £12,999 OTR, offers an entirely new way into motorcycling.

It's also a bike that could open the door for riders who might otherwise have had to give up. Whether it's a knee injury that makes operating a gear lever difficult, reduced mobility, hand conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome that make using a clutch painful, or simply a preference for a twist-and-go riding experience, the WN7 removes many of the physical barriers that can stop people riding.

The biggest mistake people make with electric motorcycles is assuming they're trying to replace everything we already love.

They're not.

They're simply another choice.

Scooters didn't kill sports bikes.

Adventure bikes didn't kill tourers.

Automatic gearboxes didn't kill manuals.

And electric motorcycles won't make petrol bikes disappear overnight. For the foreseeable future, they'll sit alongside them, offering something different for a different kind of rider.

Perhaps that's exactly where they belong.

Dimensions and Weights

Dimensions (LxWxH) (mm)

L: 2,156 mm W: 826 mm H: 1,085 mm

Kerb Weight (kg)

217 kg

Seat Height (mm)

800 mm

Instruments and Electrics

Headlights

LED + DRL

Instruments

5" TFT Display

Tail Light

LED

Connectivity

Yes: RoadSync App (free)

USB Socket

Yes: Type C x1

Additional Features

Riding Modes

4 Modes (Sport, Standard, Rain, ECO)

Additional Features

Smart Key, FWD/RVS Assist (Max 5km/h)

Speed Limit Assist (SSLA)

Selectable Deceleration Power Levels

Immobiliser

Yes

EV Motor

Range (WMTC Class 1)

140km (WMTC2-2)

Energy Consumption (Wh/km)

80Wh/km

EV Battery

• Type

  Lithium-Ion

• Voltage

  349.44V

• Capacity

  9.3kWh

• Charger

  Normal - Type 2 Quick - CCS2

• Charge Time 0% to 100%

  < 2h 30min by Normal charge (Mode3)