Last year was a difficult year for the motorcycle industry, due primarily to the regional lockdowns, production stoppages, and disrupted supply chains.
The effect has been a loss in motorcycle sales across the board, and KTM is no different from the bulk of the two-wheeled brands.
Reporting a drop of 3.4% in motorcycle units sales, KTM ended last year selling 270,047 motorcycles worldwide (compared to 280,099 units in 2019).
All four Japanese motorcycle brands have agreed to a standard on swappable battery packs for two-wheelers, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha are reporting.
The Swappable Battery Consortium for Electric Motorcycles is focused only on the Japanese market, and shouldn’t be confused with a similar agreement and effort that Honda and other brands (Yamaha, KTM, and Piaggio) agreed to earlier this year.
The news that the Buell Motorcycles name would return from the shadows of the motorcycle industry has certainly stirred the two-wheel world . The American brand was not without its rabid fans, but it garnered plenty of detractors as well over the course of its history, and through its various incarnations.
Never quite at home inside the Harley-Davidson family, the Buell Motorcycle Company was shuttered in October 2009. Not one to quit though, Erik Buell continued the company’s ideals in another self-branded endeavor: Erik Buell Racing.
This startup would be short-lived though, bringing only two models to market, in its roughly five-year run. Despite being unshackled from Harley-Davidson, EBR foundered in the marketplace, and floundered on the race track.
At the conclusion of both of these separate ventures, there was Liquid Asset Partners – a Michigan-based company that makes its business from buying the assets of bankrupt companies and flipping them to buyers for a profit.
But for Bill Melvin (the CEO of LAP), the motorcycle brands of Buell and EBR were not business as usual.
At the end of EBR’s road under Erik Buell’s management, LAP continued its operations, albeit in a very limited manner, assembling motorcycles from the plethora of parts LAP had acquired in the bankruptcy proceedings, and selling them to EBR’s remaining enthusiastic customers.
When the chance came to buy the Buell name from Harley-Davidson, LAP didn’t hesitate. The two estranged motorcycle companies of Erik Buell could now merge under one roof, and Buell Motorcycles was born again.
Do not adjust your computer monitors. Don’t worry about the date, this is not an April Fools joke. What you are seeing is real. Buell is back.
The Buell Motorcycles name is returning back to business, as Erik Buell Racing has acquired the name from Harley-Davidson, and plans to relaunch its motorcycle business under the moniker.
With that news, Buell Motorcycles has big plans, as the American company hopes to release 10 motorcycles by the 2024 model year.
There is something brewing between KTM and Kramer Motorcycles, and the internet seems to be in agreement with that notion.
The smoke to this fire comes from a story first published on German-language Speedweek, where it was reported that KTM was working on a smaller-displacement track bike, after scrapping its RC16 customer program.
The Speedweek story showed an alleged spy photo (shown below) of the bike that KTM was working on for this project, though the site failed to recognize the motorcycle in question as being a Kramer 890 GP2.
Hidden by talk of the Harley-Davidson “Hardwire” business plan, which seems like more business speak than actual business substance, we also have the American brand’s Q4 results from last year, as well as the yearly sales results from 2020.
If you need a two-word summary of those sales results, we will provide you with a “not good” response.
Harley-Davidson finished the year down 17.4% compared to the sales numbers of 2019, with Q4 2020 showing a 14% drop over the same time period last year.
The Norton Motorcycles brand has gone through the wringer this past year, with the company’s financial scandal culminating in India’s TVS Motor Company purchasing the beleaguered British marque.
Much was said about what the future of Norton would look like under TVS ownership, but it seems clear now that the new regime is set on righting the ship.
In addition to its product lineup commitments, TVS has invested heavily in Norton’s long-term future. The latest evidence of this is the creation of a new headquarters for the iconic motorcycle brand in Solihull, in the West Midlands of England.
By all fair accounts, BMW Motorrad’s sales drop in 2020 (the first in nine years) should still be considered a positive result considering the circumstances, though perhaps not quite the extent that BMW’s press release would lead you to believe.
This is because the German brand is busy spinning its 2020 motorcycle sales figures with a full-court press, including the caveat that 2020 was the second-best sales result in BMW Motorrad’s history (which they are), though the success of BMW Motorrad varies greatly by region.
Fantic Motor has closed a deal that sees the Italian company buying 100% of the Motori Minarelli operation from Yamaha Motor Europe – a move that is said to strengthen the partnership between the two motorcycle manufacturers.
As we saw with the Ducati Motor Holding’s sales report from earlier today, 2020 was an obviously tough year for the motorcycle industry, and that trend continues with the BMW Motorrad’s results for the year.
In its preliminary report on the BMW Group’s annual sales, the German brand quotes that it sold 169,272 motorcycles and scooters to customers in 2020.
Despite BMW Motorrad spinning this as its second-best sales year ever, this number of bikes sold is a 3.4% drop compared to 2019’s sales volume, and it is the first time in nine years that sales for BMW Motorrad have not grown.
The beancounters are working hard to close the books on 2020, which means we are starting to see our first reports on the total economic situation from last year.
With factory closures, disrupted supply chains, and stay-at-home orders featuring heavily in the first-half of the year, the coronavirus decimated motorcycle sales worldwide.
Then, the second-half of the year saw a huge bump in two-wheel interest, buoyed by economic relief efforts, delayed sales trends, and a renewed interest in the ultimate social-distancing machine.
This makes for a grab bag of perspectives when it comes to motorcycles sales, and nothing could be more true than what Ducati Motor Holding is reporting today.