“Chuck, listen to this!” Everybody who has seen “Back to the future 1” remembered that scene when Marty McFly played the famous guitar solo at the high school prom. It is no coincidence that the developers of 2electron called their technology McFly to set the bar for user experience higher than ever before in the motoring and motorcycling world.

The McFly system manages an electric motor to precisely emulate the performance, number of gears, gear ratios, power band, sound and vibrations of an almost limitless number of combustion engines. The Emula motorcycle is a concept bike to demonstrate the technology: it’s a real bike featuring McFly that can be ridden.

Check out the movie and you know instantly what McFly can do:

The McFly virtualization can make the electric motor behave in exactly the same way as a variety of different combustion engines; all you have to do is select the one you want on the display. Emula lets you “use” the engine in the bike of your dreams, the first bike you had age 16, or the supersport that always catches your eye, every time it passes.

McFly also lets you ride emitting “zero” external noise with the sound of the engine piped directly into your helmet: zero local emissions and zero environmental noise, make it an all round riding experience. McFly technology is compatible with all 2 or 4 wheel electric vehicles, also those powered by fuel cells.

The system can be completely or partially deactivated: Emula can also be ridden like any other electric motorcycle, using just the accelerator and brakes, without the gearbox and clutch.

Missing something?

If you think that something is missing in electric motorcycles like feeling the engine as it revs, the rear kick as you shift gears, the growl of the exhaust that’s music to your ears … Well, add some McFly at your bike and you’re off! The result for the rider is a realistic interaction with the accelerator, clutch and gearbox. The distinctive features of an internal combustion engine are faithfully reproduced: torque and power curves, power band, engine braking, mechanical noise, exhaust note, and even the vibrations. The McFly system in fact uses a series of speakers to produce conventional mechanical sounds and exhaust notes, and a bass shaker along with a mix of other technologies to generate the unmistakable vibrations produced by combustion engines.

Several engines in one

But that’s not all. McFly lets you model the behaviour of a single electric motor to give the vehicle the character of a wide variety of different combustion engines. This is done with a simple “flick of a switch” on the touchscreen or smartphone app, and you’ll soon be able to download other engines from an online store.

The revolutionary McFly technology has its roots in the experience of Zener, an Italian company based in Turin offering specialized services and consulting in the automotive sector. 2electron’s CTO Jonat han Duò developed the McFly concept and presented it to Francesco Spagnolo , Zener’s CEO . It wasn’t long before Zener and Jonathan Duò set up 2electron, with Francesco Spagnolo as CEO and a mission to develop McFly, Emula and innovative engineering services. 2electron might be a new company, but it has a clear and precise idea of its conceptual and design approach. Its incisive motto goes “Innovate or abdicate”, and the focus in the McFly project is on the integration of new patents for the future development of the technology.

There is lots of technical information, we suggest you visit the website Emula.