Vespa Elettrica - The Power of Silence

Production of the Vespa Elettrica starts in September

Breda, 3 September 2018 - Respecting the programmes presented at the last edition of EICMA, the Piaggio Group will start producing the Vespa Elettrica in September. The long-awaited electric version of the most famous and beloved scooter will be manufactured at the Pontedera plant in the province of Pisa, the same one where the Vespa was born in the spring of 1946 and which today is at the world technological forefront in terms of design, development and production of advanced mobility solutions.

• The first copies can be reserved online from October
• Piaggio's electric innovation is embodied in its most iconic brand, which once again sets the new standard for urban mobility
• The Vespa Elettrica will be the first product of the Piaggio Group to adopt innovative man-machine interconnectivity solutions

It will be possible to reserve the first vehicles from October onwards, solely online, on a dedicated website, with innovative all-inclusive financing formulas that will be added to the traditional acquisition systems. The price will be at the high end of the Vespa range currently on the market.

The Vespa Elettrica will then be released gradually from the end of October, reaching full commercialization in November, coinciding with the 2018 edition of the Milanese EICMA show. Sales will start in Europe and then expand to the US and Asia from early 2019.

The Vespa Elettrica is just the first step for the Piaggio Group towards new horizons in terms of interconnection between vehicles and humans. The Vespa Elettrica will be ready to adopt in the near future the solutions currently being developed for Gita, the robot currently being built at Piaggio Fast Forward in Boston (which will start production in early 2019), such as artificial intelligence systems that both adapt and respond to any information received from the driver. They will detect nearby people and other vehicles, make the driver more capable of anticipating potential risks and opportunities, and provide real-time mapping and traffic data that will help improve the design of city transport infrastructure. Most importantly, these next-generation vehicles will know their owners inside out: they will recognise them without keys or remotes, anticipate their driving choices, interact with other devices and vehicles on the road, and allow a degree of personalisation barely conceivable today.

The Vespa Elettrica is launched as a contemporary icon of Italian technology to the world. By embracing electricity, Vespa is making an even stronger statement as a symbol of style combined with the best of innovation. The Vespa Elettrica is not just a new electric scooter. It is a contemporary work of art, with a technological heart born of all the values of the Vespa world, its image, its social and environmentally friendly soul, now even more sensitive to the quality of life in our urban environment.

The Vespa Elettrica is synonymous with easy, natural driving, but also with advanced connectivity, silence, customisation and accessibility, values that have always belonged to Vespa and that are now fully realised in the Vespa Elettrica.

The Vespa brand is currently experiencing one of the happiest periods in its history, with over one and a half million vehicles sold in the last decade. The first half of 2018 closed with a 10 % increase in sales volume compared to 30 June 2017.