The Kratos is the culmination of a long and tumultuous journey for Tork motors. Beginning in 2009 when Tork’s founder Kapil Shelke built an electric race bike that competed and won third place in the electric category at the Isle of Man TT. A few years later in 2016 later the brand announced the launch of the T6X and even opened for bookings. Then, there was radio silence. Funding issues followed by the pandemic pushed the brand on the back burner. The T6X would never make it to the black top.
Here’s the thing though, the core team at Tork Motors are a collection of dedicated engineers with a visible passion for what they do, and more importantly, how it’s done. So while the pandemic ravaged the world, the core team was slaving away on improving their initial prototype from major changes to motor, the battery, the controller and even changed the entire chassis. What they came back with was a motorcycle different enough to have a new name, and thus was born the Kratos. The Kratos will be sold in two trims, a standard version and the Kratos R that gets more power, more range, fast charging and a few extra bells and whistles. For our short first ride, we got to spend some time with an early production version of the Kratos R, and this is what we know so far.
Tork Kratos R review: Design
I think that Tork has really nailed the design of the Kratos, it’s sharp angular body work adds presence to the motorcycle without really alienating the fundamental form of a motorcycle. It’s got some nice design cues too, with body work that lines up in the shape of an R along the side, or even the triangular headlamp cluster. Being an EV though, you do get some feature extras like a sizable tank storage with a USB port for charging on the go. Just above that, the Kratos R also gets another magnetic cover that’s supposed to cover the fast charger on the R, but our pre-production bikes missed out on that port.
Look even closer and the fit and finish is a little disappointing. Switchgear, exposed wiring and one conspicuously unplugged cable on our test bike all seemed to lead to a motorcycle that had been put together in a hurry. The saving grace for Tork is that all the important bits like the chassis, the motor and the battery assembly seem contrastingly clean. Hopefully, these pre-production issues of major touch points will be ironed out leading upto the launch.
Tork Kratos R review: Chassis and components
Unlike most of the electric vehicles that we’ve seen in India to date. The Tork is a ground up new motorcycle, that’s been developed and engineered in India right down to the steel trellis chassis. The chassis is designed around the forged aluminium battery pack which is a stressed member in the frame, it’s place where the motor would be in a conventional motorcycle and centralises the weight of the Kratos. The axial flux electric motor is housed behind the battery and sends power to the rear wheel via a conventional chain drive. While the standard Kratos will have a 7.5kW motor with 28Nm of torque, the R gets a 9kW motor with 38Nm of twist. Tork claims that the Kratos will go from 0-40 in 4 seconds and will get up to a top speed of 100kmph while the R will hit the 40kmph mark in 3.5 seconds and go on to a top speed of 105kmph.
In final production spec the Kratos is expected to get three riding modes and a reverse function, but our test bikes were only equipped with two Sport and Eco. Both, the Kratos and the Kratos R get a 4kWh battery pack, and Tork claims a pretty decent 120km real world range on both bikes unfortunately we’ll only be able to put those figures to the test when we get the bike in the real world for a more comprehensive ride.
Tork Kratos R review: Ride and performance
From the saddle the initial experience was promising albeit very short-lived. Our test track was a short hilly road that led up to a Golf resort. The steep climbs and moderately high day temperatures caused overheating issues in almost every single one of the test bikes, as bikes would quickly reach their peak operating temperatures and then stall. Tork says the issue is more a software oversight than a hardware glitch that will be easy to resolve, but it meant that we never really got to understand the motorcycle.
Based on first impressions though, the motor is quick, and the progressive throttle is among the best we’ve seen on any electric vehicle. What is even better though is the handling and the weight distribution over the short time that we got to ride it the Kratos R felt agile and light without being too stiff and uncomfortable. Braking comes from a pair of discs, a 267mm disc upfront and a 220mm disc at the back from Advik, a Pune based component manufacturer. The brakes did seem to have enough bite, but it seemed like the combi-braking system on our test bike was not functioning leading to an almost snatchy response that the levers.
Tork Kratos R review: Verdict
Tork do seem on the right track, in terms of price, design, value and even the ride experience. With all the issues ironed out the Kratos has more than enough in its favor to be one of the first real options when it comes to the adoption of electric motorcycles. Hopefully Tork Motors can resolve the issue in time for deliveries and be a made-in-India electric vehicle that we can all be proud of.
Keyword: Tork Kratos R review, first ride