Industry News

One of the largest motorcycle manufacturer, Honda, is in full gear and firing on all pistons and doing tremendously well in pioneering many great technology and features onto the world streets. The most recent being the development of hydrogen fuel based engines and self-balancing motorcycles.

Now, they are getting busy in a run to stay as the world leaders by developing a supercharged V-Twin motorcycle. As seen on a MoreBikes post, “Honda is planning a new, supercharged motorcycle that will have the power-boosting unit mounted on the left-hand side of the engine. And the new kit will power a host of new motorcycles over the next few years.”

With the craze of the vintage designs and brands taking mainstage in the industry currently, another forgotten Indian brand, Yezdi, is having a grand comeback in the most modern fashion and will join the likes of Ariel, Levis, Brough, Hesketh, Matchless, and Norton. Thanks to the Indian auto major Mahindra and Mahindra’s subsidiary, Classic Legends Pvt Ltd. (CLPL) that purchased the iconic British biker BSA Motorcycles rights to the JAWA brand (whose sister company is the Yezdi).

While we know that it would take at the least a couple of years to see their first iterations of what is touted as ‘The grand revival’, Mahindra has gone ahead and launched the official Yezdi.com website. It pays homage to those twin exhaust pipes of the Yezdis of yore and will take us through the brand’s rich history and magnificent heritage of the classic motorcycles.

Royal Enfield has become one of the world’s fastest growing motorcycle brand coming from the subcontinent India. Famously called the “Bullet Maker”, it has made great strides ever since Eicher took over the self-attested “oldest motorcycle company in continuous production in the world” has been making bold moves to be heard the world over.

The most recent one of those is to shelve its first ever Café-Racer model, the Continental GT 535. It was their current flagship model that gave the post-British brand the needed visibility in the markets other than its home, and is soon going to be replaced with the Continental GT 650 twin-cylinder brother.

Honestly, this was a bit of a surprise really. A good one nonetheless.

Ever since this year began, the industry has been abuzz with the shift to the electric future, including one of the few exotic motorcycle manufacturers, Confederate Motors, who got rebranded as “Curtiss Motorcycle Co.” doing so. (Of course, the name change is due to the business impact of association with the US Confederacy.)

But venture capital fund Ernest Lee Capital believes otherwise. These chaps have successfully acquired the intellectual property rights to the Confederate brands and designs and revived the Confederate Motors Inc. to manufacture high end, extremely high-powered, big V-twin motorcycles in Birmingham, AL, all over again.

Hero Electric entered the electric world after 12 years of extensive research in the EV segment and currently provides eco-friendly and cost-effective mode of personalized transportation to the masses. The company is a multi-product and a multi-location enterprise with interests in Electric Vehicles, Bicycles and Healthcare. With the newfound interest in electric powertrains, Hero Electric has made strides in this direction and are betting big on the technology.

It has been launching electric two-wheelers for some time now and has sold to over 100,000 customers. They, however, were not market spec vehicles like the Tork T6X or Ather S340 available in the country and were very underpowered. Now, they have tied up with the German Technology giant, Bosch, to get things around for them.

Uber is the world’s largest cab aggregator which has invested heavily into running their service in multiple countries in the world. To get a stronger foothold, the firm had launched uberMOTO in few cities of India and Thailand on a pilot basis. “uberMOTO enables riders to tap a button and get a motorbike ride in minutes. It’s a great way for people to save time and money on short trips and provides last mile connectivity at the most affordable price”.

Now, they are working to strike a chord with the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, Hero MotoCorp, and start a full-fledged bike-taxis in three metro cities in their home country, India. With prices starting at just ₹20 for the first 3 kilometers (that is just 30 cents for the first 1.86 miles), they are more affordable than public transports.

Jumped to fame way back in 1996, the Canadian Campagna T-Rex showcased bonkers three-wheeled trikes that ran on a 1.4-liter Kawasaki inline-four engine and two side-by-side seats. Later, a 1.6 liter BMW inline-six engine made a 160 horsepower in the T-Rex. 20 years later, Campagna has announced plans to build an electric version of its T-Rex three-wheeler.

To be showcased at the upcoming Montreal Electric Vehicle Show as a prototype, the Electric T-Rex will feature electric powertrain from Zero Motorcycles, the global leader in electric motorcycles and powertrains.

Ever since the time Husqvarna showcased its ‘Real Street’ Vitpilen 401 and the Swartipilen 401 concepts at the 2016 EICMA, the industry is abuzz to see some bonkers design unlike anything seen before on the streets. Finally, the Swedish Huskies dropped the Vitplilen 701 followed by the Vitpilen 401, Swartipilen 401.

The Svartiplen 701 was showcased as a concept version at the EICMA last week along with the production model of the Vitpilen 701. Now, our friends from Motorcyclenews have snapped the production version undergoing testing on a damp and dry day. It carries quite a lot of bits from the concept but not as much as we hoped.

Husqvarna has just updated their two-stroke mini-motocross lineup to entice the future stars of the game. Offering some impressive features and top-of-the-line equipment list, Husky unveiled the TC50, TC65 and TC85 machines to take on the Kawasaki’s and the KTM brothers.

They will have a strict competition only specs: sans a headlamp cluster, indicators or license plates; for hence cannot be registered to be used on the public roads. These motorcycles specifically offer powerful engines, a significantly lighter chassis, high ground clearance, long travel suspension and slimmer ergonomics to be able to move around the dirt and jump hills without any hindrance.

Honda entered the Indian market in 2001 with two scooters – a segment which was believed to be taking its last breath at the time of their arrival. Against all the odds, both the scooters – Activa and Dio – went on churning a large number of volumes for their parent company, which went on to become the second largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the Indian market.

The company has come a long way since then and is on fire to go reach even higher heights. In the process, the Japanese Red has, together with its allied suppliers, invested ₹ 5400 crores ($830.5 million) into the Karnataka plant in Narasapura that just became the biggest two-wheeler manufacturer for Honda in the entire world.

Traffic in eastern countries is becoming a tourist highlight of sorts with people photographing it to share their experiences back home. Traffic causing gridlocks all across the towns and major cities have become a common sight, but the governments are worried about the bigger problem here. With so many vehicles plying, the environment is taking the hit with depleting air quality, especially with older vehicles emitting much more than current ones.

Hence, one of the eastern countries, Singapore, is taking a major step towards restricting these old motorcycles creating environmental and congestion woes before they could go out of gear. The National Environment Agency (NEA) has announced cash incentives of up to S$3,500 (USD$2650) to owners who will de-register their pre-2003 registered motorcycles over the next five years.

Vanguard is a brand new name in the motorcycle world that has vowed to celebrate utilitarianism. The brand is touted to be an entirely new and distinct for premium motorcycles that are decisive on re-shaping the rule books.

Now, the American company has joined hands with 3 partners to attack the onset of electric motorcycles under a new banner: “VanguardSpark”. It will be an e-mobility company created to bring to market innovative, distinctive and great value-for-money urban electric two-wheelers.

"JAPANESE CRAFTSMANSHIP" and the "Spirit of CAFÉ RACER". This is how Honda described its new Neo Sports Cafe motorcycle project that was unveiled to the world on November 6th, just a day before the EICMA Milan motorcycle show. Later what came of that is the CB1000R naked-retro along with the CB300R and the CB125R.

Honda started rolling the naked liter onto the streets soon after setting up the stage for to bring in a whole new flavor into motorcycling. Having the same classic design lines with modern underpinnings, the CBR300R is now making its way onto our shores, and we cannot be any less delighted for this honor.

The HP4 is an exemplary showcase of cutting-edge technology, exotic materials, skilled craftsmanship, design, and creativity. This tells us all about the experience, skillset and state-of-the-art know-how the folks at BMW have that make them rise above and beyond. Alas, all of this asks a hefty $78,000 affordable by just 1% of mankind.

Now, the same folks bring you an affordable way for the rest of the 99% to get all that carbon-fiber on to your motorcycle. And doing so, they have just received the 2018 JEC Innovation Award in the Leisure & Sports category for the development and manufacture of a rear swinging arm made of carbon fiber.

Good morning and welcome to our April Fool’s Day round-up. It has already been two good days since we came under hoax news and stories from the motorcycle world playing practical jokes on us. Thanks to the close proximities of these pranks to the company’s products and impressions, they tricked us into believing their true existence.

Some were instantly rubbed off, while some seemed pretty convincing. Nonetheless, they all were pure April’s Fool pranks, and if you did not catch them all, we have got you covered. Participating in the Sunday’s jester were pranksters from BMW, Kawasaki, Triumph, Yamaha and a bunch of others including Lewis Hamilton.

It was at the 2017 EICMA that we first heard of Suzuki’s intentions of bringing the name ‘Katana’ back into the motorcycling realm. Showcasing the ‘Katana 3.0 Concept’, Suzuki was mulling about bringing the concept to production, but somehow lost steam and people didn’t have much to talk about.

Now though, fresh new information has surfaced suggesting that Suzuki has strong intentions of getting it back for real. The Japanese firm has recently filed for a trademark application in the USA for the name ‘Katana’ and a swanky new logo too with the sword. It is more of a logo and name protection really.

2018 hasn’t started well for our Bar and Shield brand which, at the end of 2017, saw a 6.7% downfall worldwide. In the US alone the numbers were down by 8.5% compared to the previous year. Then the news came of the firm shutting its Kansas City plant, due to the uprise of used Harleys being sold outside.

It received slander from Green activists opposing the waiving of pollution fines by the President Donald Trump administration. Now, it seems to have caught up in a brew of political strategies between the Trump government and the world over. And if you have been paying attention to the current affairs lately, Trump has declared Trade Wars with India and the European Union.

A few motorcycle manufacturers these days are scrambling to set up new technology and are pushing their R&D department to come up with innovative solutions to develop electric motorcycles. Others are partnering with smaller start-up companies who already have all the infrastructure ready for electric production, and the newest combination of this is Harley Davidson and Alta Motors.

The Brisbane, California based Alta Motors designs and manufactures the most advanced electric motorcycles in the industry. Starting in 2010, the firm has come a long way in establishing itself building bikes that prove to be better off-roaders than the petrol-powered counterparts. Their recent adventure is the brand new motorcycle called the Redshift MXR.

Starting last month, we learned that Harley has begun registering new names as part of their new strategy to add 100 new models in the coming decade. Harley-Davidson has already introduced 10 new ones this year: nine new Softails and the Street Rod.

With 90 more to come, Harley has gone ahead and registered three new names for their new motorcycle models: “Bronx”, ’48X’ and ’Pan America’. Now, new information tells us that Harley has gone ahead and filed ‘Harley-Davidson Revelation’ trademark for its newfound electric tech that includes batteries, chargers, and motorcycle powertrains.