Bigfoot. Nessie. Roswell…these are the great myths of our time. In the motorcycle industry, we can add another one to the list: a scooter from Ducati. It has been often talked about in enthusiast and media circles, and it has often been denied by Ducati’s higher-ups.
Today we get some news from Ducati that a scooter is on the way, and more, as Edouard Lotthé (Managing Director of Ducati Western Europe) confirmed not only a Ducati scooter project, but also Ducati’s electric future, in an interview with France’s Moto-Station.
Dismissing any chance of Ducati getting into the 300cc supersport category (a segment that is rapidly becoming the 400cc supersport category), Lotthé did hint that Ducati would offer more appropriate options for urban commuters, in the form of a scooter.
Lotthé also confirmed Ducati’s plans to bring an electric motorcycle to market, though was quick to dismiss a timeline and what sort of category and engine displacement the electric Ducati would compete against.
Volkswagen’s Roadmap E, a comprehensive plan to electrify the entire automotive group’s range by 2030, includes Ducati. However, it remains to be seen if the motorcycle brand will be held to the same standard as its four-wheeled counterparts, where an electric version of every gas vehicle is to be made.
In his interview with Moto-Station, Lotthé says that we can’t expect to see a scooter or an electric motorcycle any time soon, and certainly not before 2021.
For the motorcycle industry, the 2021 model year is an important point in time, as it is the year that a motorcycle company’s entire lineup will have to be Euro5 compliant, which will be no small task.
As such, Ducati will be quite busy from now until then, finding ways to make its current lineup Euro5-ready, as well as its future models (the deadline for the latter is 2020, by the way).
One silver lining? Lotthé says Ducati is committed to making its air-cooled engines Euro5 compliant, which is no small undertaking in its own right. This does seem to secure the future of the Scrambler Ducati sub-brand though. So, there’s that.
Source: Moto-Station
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