This is a new weekly motorcycle industry news brief (please click the link and subscribe). It’s not a commitment (for you), not a hassle (for me), it’s just a few pieces of info a week that may open your riding experience up to what’s happening outside your favorite brand and around the world. Be aware that if you subscribe to this Substack and also listen to the podcast Chasing the Horizon, you’ll get some repeats between the two.
The Flying Flea goes on sale in Europe
The C6 Flying Flea by Royal Enfield can now be ordered in London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin and Rome, with deliveries scheduled to begin in October. It is RE’s first electric motorcycle; note that it’s a situation similar to Harley and LiveWire, with the electric bikes being a specific brand among the company’s offerings.
The C6 costs £5,300 in the UK and €5,990 in continental Europe—both equivalent to roughly $7,000. Its 3.91-kWh battery powers a 15.4-kW motor (~21 hp, 60 Nm/44 pound-feet of torque). RE claims a 72-mph top speed and 65 miles of WMTC urban range; neither has been independently verified, and an urban test-cycle range should not be mistaken for 65 miles of real-world riding. According to RE, Indian riders have covered over 60,000 miles on the bikes in the first three months it has been on sale there. It’s not evidence of sales volume or reliability, but it’s an interesting data point.
This isn’t just another electric startup announcing an EICMA prototype; the Flying Flea is capitalizing on RE’s capital, engineering staff and international dealer organization on top of its million-plus motorcycles-per-year capabilities. Still, this rollout amounts to five urban locations and that’s it. There is still no confirmed American launch. | LINK
Yamaha takes New England dealer to court
When a motorcycle company and a dealer end up in court, you probably expect the little guy (dealer) to be suing the big multinational corporation. Not this time! Yamaha Motor Finance is suing Motorcycles of Manchester and three related MOMS companies, seeking nearly $2.8 million over an alleged inventory-financing default. Yamaha says the New England dealership group failed to make timely payments after selling motorcycles financed through Yamaha’s floor-plan program. That’s how many (maybe even most) dealers stock their showrooms: the lender pays for the inventory, then the dealer repays the lender as each vehicle sells. Yamaha also alleges overdue parts payments and interest.
MOMS isn’t just one little mom-and-pop corner motorcycle shop; it describes itself as a family-owned group with nine locations and franchises representing Yamaha, Indian, Ducati, Triumph, Honda, Kawasaki, CFMOTO and Can-Am, among others. It is still considerably smaller than Yamaha, however, making this an unusual case of Goliath initiating the fight. The allegations have not been adjudicated, and the lawsuits do not establish that MOMS is closing stores or having similar problems with its other manufacturers, so don’t read more into it … yet. | LINK | Court Filing
Bore & stroke vs. emissions regulations?
We normally think of bore and stroke as choices that determine whether an engine is torquey, rev-happy or somewhere in between. However, it may end up being more consequential point that the same dimensions influencing combustion efficiency may also affect emissions—and therefore emissions regulations.
TECH GEEK ALERT: An oversquare engine (bore larger than stroke is long) provides room for bigger valves and generally allows higher engine speeds, which is great for high-performance motorcycles. These engines usually have broad, shallow combustion chambers with more surface area relative to volume, so more heat can escape into the cylinder walls, though additional wall and crevice area can leave fuel incompletely burned. A narrower, longer-stroke cylinder has a more compact combustion chamber and shorter flame travel, which can improve thermal efficiency and reduces unburned hydrocarbons. The penalty comes in higher piston speeds, greater friction and less room for large valves.
The reason I’m relating all this engineering and math geekery to you is because tighter emissions rules can influence the basic architecture of an engine beyond the size of its catalytic converter. Manufacturers trying to preserve existing highly oversquare performance engines may eventually reach a point where additional exhaust-cleaning hardware and electronic calibration become too expensive a tradeoff to justify. There’s a lot more to it, of course, but combustion-chamber design, compression, injection, valve timing, operating temperature, calibration and exhaust treatment all remain enormously important to tailpipe emissions. SAE research (from 1978) seems to support the underlying connection between high bore-to-stroke ratios, increased heat loss and greater hydrocarbon emissions. | LINK
China establishes national standard for swappable motorcycle batteries
China’s new recommended (nudge nudge, wink wink) technical standard for electric-motorcycle and electric-moped battery-swapping systems takes effect at the beginning of October; it establishes testing and design requirements covering battery retention, electrical insulation, temperature rise, fire resistance, vibration and impact resistance, remaining-charge displays and the durability of frequently connected battery interfaces. It also seeks to make the basic swapping process more consistent for users, but stops short of creating a single interchangeable Chinese motorcycle battery.
The companies involved in drafting it include CFMoto, Yadea, Aima, Ninebot, Wuyang-Honda and Haojue Suzuki, along with battery suppliers and testing organizations. That participation gives the standard relevance well beyond obscure domestic scooters. Several of those manufacturers either export globally or supply companies that do, which means this Chinese standard could well end up affecting the global electric scooter/motorcycle industry. | LINK (note: linked page is in Chinese and will have to be translated in/by your browser)
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