Flying Flea is the latest electric two-wheeler manufacturer to embrace the connected vehicle trend. At CES 2025, Flying Flea shared plans to integrate some of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon products into its upcoming line of motorcycles, bringing connected capabilities like voice assistance, smartphone enabled keys, and customizable ride modes.
Indian motorcycle manufacturer Royal Enfield introduced the Flying Flea brand in November 2024, and although it hasn’t started shipping vehicles yet, it’s already one of several e-motorcycle brands that is delivering the types of connected features that are already common in cars.
“Connected services are fundamentally transforming the two-wheeler and micromobility markets, providing riders with real-time diagnostics, advanced navigation, and personalized ride settings – all of which enhance the safety and convenience of their journey,” Nimish Shrivastava, senior director of product management at Qualcomm, said in a statement.
Verge Motorcycles, a Finnish e-motorcycle startup that is demoing its bikes at CES 2025, has also embraced intelligent and connected features, like different ride modes, over-the-air updates, a touchscreen interface to access vehicle diagnostics and info, GPS capabilities, and Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. Other high-tech two-wheeler brands to hit the streets lately include Damon Motorcycles, Harley Davidson’s LiveWire, and Zero Motorcycles.
Flying Flea expects to drop its first vehicles in early 2026; the classically styled FF-C6 and the scrambler-like FF-S6. The brand’s future lineup will integrate Qualcomm’s Snapdragon QWM2290 system-on-a-chip (SoC) and Car-to-Cloud platform.
Qualcomm launched its QWM2290 SoC in 2023 specifically for two-wheelers. SoCs connect multiple functions in a single chip, like infotainment, driver assistance, and navigation systems. Qualcomm has said this particular SoC can give riders alerts for low battery with recommendations for nearby charging stations, real-time navigation, safety features like alerts if a rider goes above the speed limit, and vehicle monitoring.
In the case of Flying Flea, the SoC powers the vehicles’ core vehicle control unit that runs Flying Flea’s operating system. This enables the rider to manage the vehicle and ride experience through a display cluster on the bike.
Combined with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud platform, Flying Flea vehicles promise to maintain communication between the rider and the machine both on and off the motorcycle with 4G, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. This manifests as a voice assist button, pre-set ride modes that the rider can customize based on needs and terrain, and the ability to use a mobile phone as a smart key to unlock and start the motorcycle, according to the company.
