Lifestyle Motorcycle Brands shy away from Electrification
…and it is comprehensible
In our previous post, we mentioned that electrifying large motorcycle equivalents is a challenge. One of the Core Fundamentals of E2Ws is that they store their energy, and large motors demand large storage, making the vehicle obese.
But first…
…Let’s start with some definitions
Commuters are small-capacity machines (<250cc) that are primarily used for daily commuting irrespective of their body types (scooters, motorcycles, mopeds, etc.) or body styles (cruiser, sports, enduro, etc.)
We call anything above 250cc as the Lifestyle segment. From Maxi-scooters to cruiser motorcycles, everything is a discretionary purchase and representative of the buyer's lifestyle.
What is also inter-twined is that most LIfestyle brands also enjoy a Heritage and History and have developed technical nuances (visual cues, engines, suspensions, aural tones, etc.) that drive differentiation and brand loyalty in followers.
More than 92-percent of E2Ws worldwide are Commuters, and while we made that number up, it’s not far from the truth.
The Simple Explanation
E2Ws carry their energy, and since the carriage (battery) is bulky, a small motor and a small battery are the best combination to keep weight and costs down. Commuters are also less likely to go on freeways for long trips, and a 60-80 km range promise can tick off most use cases.
In comparison, Lifestyle machines require greater power, range, and energy. The battery gets bigger and heavier, which is not fun for a machine that eventually has to shoot Instagram reels zigzagging on a freeway.
A very simple explanation, and that is mostly correct.
However, there are nuances.
Exceptions?
One exception to the Lifestyle electrification use case is Motocross motorcycles, where the use case of low range, high torque, and modest power beautifully meets the electrification capabilities.
This match is a bit too much.
During the process of compiling the upcoming Global Landscape and Future Prospects Report from InsightEV, we counted 48 electric motocrossers on sale currently, most of them in Europe.
That is not a comprehensive list, mind you, and there are more being prepared.
Some have to fail, though this does illustrate the suitability of the Motocross format for electrification.
Why Electrifying Commuters Are Easier?
There are similarities between ICE and EVs that make engineering Commuters easier.
Simpler Thermal Management: Like ICE, engineering a small motor and battery configuration needs very little thermal management as the current drawn from the battery is limited.
Simpler Frames: Smaller means lightweight, and the 2W is expected to travel at lower speeds. As a result, the frame can be lighter and simpler.
Ditto for Commuter E2Ws.
Volumes: Nearly 90-percent of the global 2W market are Commuters. There is a huge volume potential and a stronger volume business case. Every small-capacity battery or motor has the potential to replicate the Honda Cub’s sloper engine success - a volume potential of millions of units.
Smaller machines are simpler and more popular, and we believe that while brands are made with Lifestyle 2Ws, money is made with Commuters.
This gets us to the question - would the Lifestyle segment ever go electric comprehensively?
Remember, Lifestyle = Brand = Heritage, and the most important thing here is the brand, as manufacturers have spent their entire long-term efforts focused on building and preserving it.
So would the ‘Brands’ go electric?
There is no completely correct answer. In our direct conversations with heritage brands and in talking to media experts who regularly discuss this industry, it is apparent that electrification is treated like Greta Thunberg by the heritage motorcycle industry. They wish her to go away, but she is a 20-year-old awkward girl, and dissing her publicly is not politically correct.
We are in that twilight zone where no one wants to be technologically incorrect and stick their necks out to say that going electric is not worth their concentrated engineering efforts.
What if someone invented the equivalent of an Arc Reactor?
Instead, the Brands have chosen ‘going electric’ as a useful side hustle, often relegating it to a corner of their billion-dollar R&D operations.
Are the technology constraints really that indomitable?
The broad elements all seem to be there already. Motors with up to 150kW peak power are available off-the-shelf. The RPM is not a constraint either—15k revs are not too demanding if you can get the Voltages above 300. Multiple 15k+ rpm motors with integrated gearboxes exist, so it has been figured out.
It is also not the battery - packing 20 kWh+ is becoming too common.
Combining the above means full-mad electric superbikes will likely beat litre-class sports bikes at straight-line speeds and 0-100 dashes.
Cue Lightning LS 218 and Damon Hypersport.
Pity there are not too many of them. It seems that the big daddies - Ducati, BMW, Yamaha or Honda - are still not convinced.
And rightly so.
The Damon (not yet produced) and the Lightning (sold in small numbers) retail at USD 40k - 50k. In comparison, the Ducati Panigale V4 variants start at less than USD 32k. That’s a significant price delta for buying a motorcycle that would undoubtedly have range constraints and be heavier.
The ‘quicker’ and' faster' bits are debatable—litre-class ICE superbikes are imbecile-level quick, so only a handful of riders would want to go further to Mad Max level by paying significantly more. It is a pissing contest in some ways, but even those have a limit.
Lightning has tried to address the range constraints by tying up with Enevate and now offers a 10-minute recharge that adds more than 200 km of usable range. It's not as fast as a 2-minute refuel, but we will take that.
What is still not solvable is the weight, the price, and the feel.
We will come to the feel bit in a minute. But first, let’s discuss the touchy topics of de-rating and obsolescence.
Derating
ICE engines are fairly simple and honest - a top speed of 200 kph means you can sit around that on the throttle for a long period. Sure, the manifolds become hot, but the ICE engine won’t sputter and die and, in almost all cases, won’t overheat.
Most importantly, ICE engines won’t automatically partially close the throttle valve and bring you down from 200 kph to 100 kph.
Electric tech is different. It is skewed. It’s the nature of the beast.
Did you notice that Electric Motors have two powers—constant/steady and peak? Sly companies advertise the peak, but that’s not useful. The constant power is what the motor would deliver in its natural state, drawing the steady state current from the battery cells.
Peak power is what the motor is capable of jumping to…momentarily! At this point, the motor is drawing excess current from the cells. That’s not a great thing unless you are using exotic expensive cells.
As an illustration, a motor with 7 kW steady and 12 kW peak power running off a 4kWh battery is drawing 1.75 C in the steady state and 3 C current in the peak state.
Think of it as a runner. They can run at a steady pace for long distances. However, a burst of excess speed can only be managed briefly.
In many Peak cases, the battery gets hurt, and the Battery Management System (BMS) won’t allow you to make this mischief for sustained periods. The manufacturer has a liability in terms of battery warranty, so fun has to be momentary.
Elongated fun comes at a cost, and performance E2W manufacturers have to tie up with hardcore specialists like Molicel and Enevate.
This is de-rating and is one of the key experience differentiators between ICE and E2Ws.
It is also why the weekend motorcycle hooligan would quickly fall out of love with E2Ws.
An extension of de-rating is thermal management. Draw excess current from the cells, and they will heat up. That is not an issue if proper thermal management is built-in (like liquid cooling for large batteries). But if it is not, then in edge cases, it may lead to a thermal runaway (kaboom!).
Planned Obsolescence: Big Motorcycles and iPhones
Planned obsolescence is great for profits but not so great for the brand. A large-size motorcycle is not an iPhone you would trade off whenever the next-gen pops up.
One of the recurring themes with heritage motorcycling brands is the customer’s desire to possess the machines for long periods. So, brands are often balancing obsolescence with longevity. Sure, BMW Motorrad would like R 1250 GS riders to upgrade to R 1300 GS. But the R 1250 GS on the roads would not slow down and start spluttering just because there is a new generation model in the showrooms.
Upgrades are secondary. What BMW Motorrad would like is for the well-heeled riders to upgrade to the R 1300 GS while their discarded R 1250s and R 1200s get good prices in the used motorcycle marketplaces and find new loving homes and equally passionate owners.
Eventually, a well-maintained big ICE motorcycle would last more than two decades, at times longer.
The best path to obsolescence for a big motorcycle would be from being a prized possession in the garage to a conversation piece and a family heirloom. It’s never obsolete.
And that is where the Lifestyle electric machines cannot match. Batteries have a lifespan - we are improving them daily, but they still have a lifespan.
Large ICE engines, too, have a lifespan, but engines can be maintained, repaired, and rebuilt, and broken parts can be fabricated. However, batteries are stupid, sealed units. Cells change, formats change, and batteries would become obsolete.
The next meteor crash event for cells is the move to solid state batteries that would likely quickly make the much-loved cylindrical format obsolete.
That means an LS 218 would not be passed from this Editor to Editor Jr. in 2035. It would likely be landfill by then, and while that is okay for an electric commuter scooter from China, it’s completely unacceptable for a USD 40k motorcycle.
Feel…and why Product Planning on paper doesn’t work
Often E2W startups look at Lifestyle machines in a rather linear fashion. One look at the engine power and torque and the general discussion in Product Planning departments is along the lines, “Sure, we can beat that with our motor easily.”
These organizations end up doing Paper Product Planning, where you draw endless presentations benchmarking your potential product against market leaders. This is nothing but a brochure-to-brochure comparison. This benchmarking pits competition attributes that you may measure against your attributes that better the competition.
It sounds good on paper only.
It is just too difficult to benchmark against ICE motorcycles like the R 1250GS. Last year, it was the best-selling big (>800cc) motorcycle in the world, and everyone wanted to take some of BMW Motorrad’s money.
But why does the R1250 GS sell?
In 2023, BMW shipped more than 55,000 R 1250 GS / R 1300 GS (there was a model change towards the end of the year) motorcycles. That’s a lot of full-size motorcycles, the most for any brand and nameplate.
So what makes it sell?
Is it the power? The Multistrada and the Super Adventure both have more.
Is it the speed? The Ducati and the KTM again come out better.
Is it the electronics? Arguably, the Multistrada comes on top here.
Is it the torque? It is the highest in the segment, but not by far. The KTM Super Adventure comes close but does not come anywhere close in sales numbers.
It does seem that the competition beats the GS on nearly every ‘paper attribute’ and yet the BMW sells more than the competition combined.
There is anecdotal evidence that riders like the BMW's low CG-driven handling, poise, and long-distance comfort.
A product planner at an electric motorcycle upstart has a tough benchmark to beat. None of these attributes are easy to measure and put down on paper. Worst, they won’t even know how to deliver the experience when they are saddled with an obese machine to start with, in an era where the ICE market leaders continue to shave off weight from their machines.
It’s not just the GS
We see these ICE-age idiosyncracies everywhere. In North America, Harley-Davidson is super successful in the American Cruiser motorcycle format even though—arguably—the Japanese make better cruisers on paper.
In India, Royal Enfield 350cc single-cylinder machines make a puny 20PS / 15kW. The segment competition from Triumph, Harley, Hero, KTM, Husqvarna, Bajaj, and Honda produces much more power and torque, yet the REs have 85 percent of the market segment.
To add insult to injury, Royal Enfields probably sit at the bottom of the quality pecking order and were known until a few years back for leaking gaskets and breaking frames.
For a Product Planner in the EV industry planning to compete on Paper with RE, they now are expected to design a motorcycle with a classic British roadster styling, a 15kW motor, a 400km range, a clunky mechanical gearshift, an audio device for thump, and then create a vestigal oil sump to mimic an oil leak.
It’s not easy competing with Lifestyle brands on attributes that their loyal fanbase loves them for. Harley-Davidson made a business out of its V-twin engines and aural note and pretty much defined the American Cruiser styling genre, as sloppy as it may look.
India-based Royal Enfield is known for its ‘Thump’ and classic British roadster styling.
Moto Guzzi uses the well-recognised transversely mounted, air-cooled, V-twin engine format, with both cylinder heads jutting out in the airflow.
Boutique manufacturer Bimota is known for its hub-centred steering design.
Other brands like Ducati, KTM, and Triumph are known for their unique, difficult-to-quantify virtues.
The Electrification Challenge for Lifestyle Brands
This is a double-edged sword. If the E2W start-ups cannot compete with ICE Ducatis, then Ducati EV cannot compete with Ducati ICE either.
The brand knows this as well and has been addressing the issue cautiously. In 2017, Ducati’s owner, the Volkswagen Group, outlined its plans—Roadmap E—to make all its brands have an electric presence by 2030.
That’s 13 years! We feel that the timeline was kept intentionally ‘relaxed’ as they could see the challenges of electrifying large, fast motorcycles.
For a few years after that, nothing happened until Ducati took the next careful step—taking over as the sole vehicle supplier for the MotoE championship from Energica. Since 2023, Ducati’s V21L electric superbike has been running in MotoE, and the brand will continue to be the sole supplier till the 2026 season.
Ducati calls this important learning, especially in the area of battery tech. We agree. Deration is an important factor in Ducati's operating segments.
And then there is this.
Ducati is at a critical point in its journey - the brand has managed to again find its mojo after financial shelter from the VW group. It has built a desirable proposition around its V4 engine. The engine configuration powers the top-of-the-line Ducatis - Pannigale V4, Streetfighter V4, Diavel V4, and Multistrada V4.
In 2023, the engine configuration accounted for nearly 60% of Ducati’s roughly 58,000+ sales.
Remember, these V4 Ducatis are the most expensive and highest-margin bikes in the range. The brand's fans like the V4. At such a stage in the brand’s journey, for them to jump to electric is unthinkable.
BMW Motorrad Knows…
BMW Motorrad, perhaps the biggest brand in lifestyle motorcycles, wants to sidestep electric for now. Sure, they have the CE02 and CE04, but neither targets the brand’s core customers. Their goal is to sell 100,000 electric two-wheelers per year by 2030. Sales were a little more than 7k units in 2023.
Christian Pingitzer, the Head of Product Management of BMW Motorrad, in an interview with Motorcycle News, stated
“We’re carefully looking into the future, so we think it’s not the time to just produce an electric motorcycle.”
Essentially, BMW does not want to change the mainstream motorcycles until it is forced to. So there is a new 1300 GS, and there should be a new 1400 GS down the line because a 1390 Adventure is coming soon, and the game demands upmanship.
Pingitzer believes that it is not yet time for them “to just take our bikes and stuff some electric motors in and make it look like it was before” as he highlighted the dismal failure of the lifestyle E2W industry: “Some brands build motorcycles like that, but they’re not super successful at the moment.”
Meanwhile, quirky products like the CE02 and CE04 should carry the electric mandate, and the brand hopes to find new customers.
“It’s hoped that this younger generation of riders coming through, who likely have less desire to own a large-capacity combustion motorcycle.”
The Problem of Older Gents
Pingitzer is spot on and inadvertently highlights one of the problems heritage brands face in the Western world—the riders are old. Walk through the stalls of a Royal Enfield, BMW, or any heritage brand at EICMA, and one is greeted with a sea of white hair.
Even though heritage brands had their best years ever in 2023, lifestyle motorcycling is changing shape fast. Motorcycles are bigger and heavier, have more electronics, and cost much more. The young generation is not enamoured, and the 45+ gents seem to be the flag bearers as of now.
We also see the convenience changes in cars—from stick-shift to automatic transmissions—making their way to motorcycles. So, while the Supersports have quick shifters, the bigger ADVs like the R 1300 GS would move to automatic transmissions, which Grand Tourers like the Goldwing have already done.
Royal Enfield’s Problems
We see the same issues at RE as well. Replacing the ‘Thump’
Siddarth Lal, the CEO of India-based Royal Enfield, recently commented that his company is not in a hurry to launch electric motorcycles.
“It might take us a little more time to get all the nuances absolutely spot on. We're not aiming for speed; we're aiming for excellence. That's our approach,” he stated in a post earnings call.
RE’s electric motorcycle launch targets have been pushed to 2026 and beyond. This is a climb down from the earlier committed target of 2025, that the company had made in Aug 2023.
RE invested significantly in Stark Future, putting EUR 50 million into the Spain-based motocross manufacturer in December 2022. Stark makes good high-rpm motors and understands high-voltage architecture and lightweight materials. It remains to be seen if any of them can find a space in the upcoming RE electric motorcycles, considering RE ICE is the antithesis of everything Stark is good at.
And that is what has made RE so successful.
We take a pause here as Substack indicates that this post will take 15 minutes of your reading time, and we hate to take any more time in your busy week. Next week, we explore the electrification future, or lack of it, at Indian, KTM-Husqvarna, the Japanese Big Four, and Triumph. We also discuss Western governments' retreat from their strict timelines for the planned obsolescence of ICE motorcycles.
We appreciate you giving us your time and space in your mailbox, and we will see you next week!
InsightEV will release the Global Landscape and Future Prospects Report on July 1st. Mail us at editor (at) insightev.com to get a copy of the contents.