Honda may be quietly working on a supercharged engine, as latest leaked patent images seem to indicate. From the images, the supercharger is located on the left side of the engine, and this supercharged engine will likely power several new motorcycles in the pipeline. There's been no news on what development stage the engine is in, but the engine idea in the patent drawings is reportedly for future models, ranging from smaller middleweights to even a superbike. There's been no official word from Honda on this yet.
So far, there are scant details on the new supercharged engine, or what capacity it may have. The only available images are these patent sketches. The only production supercharged motorcycle currently on offer is Kawasaki's H2 and H2R, which were launched in 2014 and immediately described as a new class of "supercharged supersport" class of bikes. The track-only H2R boasts of being the most powerful production motorcycle, making 310 bhp and 326 bhp with ram air. The street-legal H2 makes 200 bhp in comparison. Kawasaki is expected to extend their supercharged range of bikes with a new superbike as well as future retro-styled models.
The first H2 sketches appeared a good four years before Kawasaki finally released the production bikes, and going by Honda's patent sketches, any production-ready supercharged Honda still seems some time away. Supercharging does increase power output with limited engine displacement. More importantly, supercharging helps lower emissions and improve fuel economy and that seems to be the more pertinent reason for developing such technology rather than just another powerful engine. As future emission regulations become increasingly stricter, it seems to be only a matter of time when the next generation of motorcycles will increasingly look at supercharging, providing cleaner and more efficient bikes of the future.
