We've been following Nawa since 2018, when we first spoke to these guys about the potential benefits of using powerful ultracapacitors alongside energy-dense lithium batteries to extend the range and boost the peak power of electric vehicles.

The company wrapped the idea up into a futuristic-looking concept bike for CES 2020, and put some outrageous figures to its claims. Using a 9-kWh lithium battery, you would expect to get around 180 km (110 miles) of urban riding out of a full charge. The Nawa Racer proposed that adding a 0.1-kWh ultracapacitor to the system would boost that range up to around 300 km (180 miles), while unlocking some serious acceleration power to boot.

How? Well, ultracapacitors might not store much energy by weight or volume – indeed, the 0.1-kWh ultracapacitor is about as big as the entire 9-kWh battery on the racer – but they can charge and discharge much faster than lithium batteries. Nawa claims that battery-powered EVs are limited in their regenerative braking capabilities by the speed at which their batteries can receive charge, and that its ultracaps can do the job so much better that you can get radical leaps in urban range, as well as bonus boost power, for less than what it'd cost you to upsize the battery.

We keep stressing this is about urban range, because an ultracapacitor will do nothing to help your bike fight wind resistance for long stretches on the highway. This is all about start-stop use cases around town, where the capacitor can turn as much stop energy back into start energy as possible.

Now, we've had a couple of skeptics quietly question the validity of the Nawa Racer's claims off the record, saying that high-performance lithium batteries can accept charge quickly enough that you'd have to be braking pretty damn hard before the battery becomes a bottleneck and an ultracapacitor starts grabbing enough extra energy to make an appreciable difference in range.