Vespa Elettrica - The Power of Silence

Production of the Vespa Elettrica starts in September

Breda, 3 September 2018 - Adhering to the programmes presented at the last edition of EICMA, the Piaggio Group will begin production of the Vespa Elettrica in September. The long-awaited electric version of the most famous and loved scooter will be manufactured at the Pontedera plant in the province of Pisa, the same plant where the Vespa was born in the spring of 1946 and which today is at the global technological forefront in terms of the 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 Piaggio Group product to adopt innovative man-machine interconnectivity solutions.

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

The Vespa Elettrica will then be gradually launched on the market from the end of October, reaching full sales in November, coinciding with the 2018 edition of the EICMA trade show in Milan. Sales will begin in Europe, then extend to the United States and Asia from early 2019.

The Vespa Elettrica is just the first step towards new horizons for the Piaggio Group in terms of the interconnection between vehicles and humans. In the near future, the Vespa Elettrica will be ready to adopt the solutions currently being developed for Gita, the robot currently being built at Piaggio Fast Forward in Boston (which will go into 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 infrastructures. Above all, these next-generation vehicles will know their owners inside out: they will recognise them without keys or remote controls, anticipate their driving choices, interact with other devices and vehicles on the road, and allow a degree of personalisation that is barely conceivable today.

The Vespa Elettrica is launched as a contemporary icon of Italian technology around the world. By going electric, Vespa is making an even stronger statement as a symbol of style combined with the very best in innovation. The Vespa Elettrica is not just a new electric scooter. It's 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, personalisation and accessibility, values that have always belonged to Vespa and that are now fully embodied 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.