KTM Group CEO Stefan Pierer has long been talking about his quest to electrify more of his brands’ street motorcycles, and recent VIN clarification documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by KTM North America reveal that ambition is ramping up in the form of two all-new street legal electric motorcycles -— the KTM ‘Freeride’ and the Husqvarna ‘Pioneer’. 

The Freeride moniker is already familiar as a line of KTM dirt bikes that kicked off in 2012 and has a 250cc two-stroke and 350cc four-stroke. The Freeride stable has also housed the evolved E-XC, thought to represent future e-dual sport potential, though none of the above-mentioned bikes are street legal. KTM did launch a road-certified Freeride, the E-SM in 2015, but that entry dropped off the market straightaway in 2016.

The Freeride noted in the new VIN coding documents will be KTM’s first time back in the street-legal e-moto ring, while the Husqvarna Pioneer, to be powered — unsurprisingly — by an identical electric motor, lithium-ion battery and on-board charger, will be the first in an all-new line for Husky. A Vitpilen 801 street bike was also mentioned in the documents, which KTM has said will be presented at EICMA.

VIN decoding information is regularly supplied to the NHTSA by manufacturers, and each is required to file new paperwork to explain any changes to the coding, which is how Dennis Chung, the superstar data miner at motorcycle.com excavated this latest info. A request had been sent by KTM North America’s Homologation and Compliance Manager, Ben Huber, asking NHTSA to update the company’s existing VIN coding by adding several new options.

In any VIN string, the fourth and fifth digits represent the model of the vehicle, and added via Huber, were E1 for Electric Freeride and P1 to denote the Electric Pioneer. The seventh position in a KTM VIN number identifies the engine, for example a 2 is for two-stroke and 4, for four-stroke, so the company instructed NHTSA to add a 0 to potential coding, which calls out a machine as electric. 

Capacity for KTM models is typically shown by the 12th character in a VIN using numbers form 0-9. For example, motorcycles under 125cc get a zero, and bikes over 900cc get a 9. Now there can be a C in 12th position, to identify an electric powertrain with the notation: “5.54kW Li-ion 660W.”

This last descriptor caused a lot of speculation on whether 5.54kW was describing the future e-bikes’ output or its capacity, since both numbers can refer to power. After his article was published, Chung was contacted by a KTM spokesperson who clarified that the 5.54 kW refers to the battery’s capacity, and that the actual power output of a new-gen Electric Freeride/Husqvarna Pioneer will be between 26-33 hp. The 660W refers to the capacity of an on-board charger. 

This is better news, since a conversion of hp from 5.54kW would be just 7.43 hp. Instead, we’ll see something comparable to a Husqvarna FE350s’s 32.8 hp, especially since real-world output from an e-vehicle can often peak on the high side of spec. Definitely more get-up-and-go than a Kawasaki KLX300 but not as juicy as a KTM 390 Adventure. In a perhaps a more practical comparison, the current Zero FX, which is electric and street legal, provides 46 hp. 

A look back at a Pierer Mobility presentation document from 2022 offers another potential clue about the new Freeride and Pioneer e-bikes. The document offered details about potential electric models, and among them was a “KTM Freeride E LV,” which was described as a street-legal enduro-style bike with a swappable battery. 

A Freeride with a battery that could be switched out would make sense knowing that KTM is a founding member of the European Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium, which also counts Honda and Yamaha as members. The group’s focus is creating standardized batteries and chargers for future e-motorcycles. 

Stefan Pierer has teased in previous interviews that a new generation of electric bikes was on the way for 2025, but Chung’s diligent mining provides the first concrete proof. We can also assume that since the request was sent to the NHTSA via KTM North America, that these new e-bikes will come to our shores soon. A debut at EICMA this November seems likely, especially since KTM AG recently revealed they will be presenting “an exciting new motorcycle that underlines the brand’s forward-looking vision” at the upcoming event.

Author: Jamie Elvidge

Jamie has been a motorcycle journalist for more than 30 years, testing the entire range of bikes for the major print magazines and specializing in adventure-travel related stories. To date she’s written and supplied photography for articles describing what it’s like to ride in all 50 states and 43 foreign countries, receiving two Lowell Thomas Society of American Travel Writer’s Awards along the way. Her most-challenging adventure yet has been riding in the 2018 GS Trophy in Mongolia as Team AusAmerica’s embedded journalist.