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How The Pandemic Has Kick-Started a Motorcycle Boom

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by Emila Smith It is hard to think about silver linings amidst a devastating pandemic. However, despite the crumbling health systems and faltering businesses, many people have found ways to keep their heads up. They are taking this as an opportunity to enjoy a COVID-triggered breath of fresh air. The pandemic has kick-started a global motorcycle boom. More people are turning to their two-wheelers to break away from the stress and fears, enjoy the outdoors, and ease movement. According to a Bloomberg report, motorcycle industry leaders are optimistic. Eric Pritchard of the Motorcycle Industry Council looked forward to the best run since 2016. Like tech-based companies, motorcycle companies look forward to explosive growth during this COVID-19 season. But what are the reasons behind this motorcycle boom? As the experts at McKinsey would say, “The pandemic reshaped what consumers buy and how they go about getting it.” Previously, motorcycle sales were low because people considered it a risky affair. Bike riders had a disproportionately high number of accidents, and people were grey concerning handling injury and claims. But it looks like the tide is turning. The pandemic has somehow caused a shift in how people perceive motorcycling. It is no longer a stressful, hair-raising activity, but one pursued its health benefits. Read on and learn how wellness-craving buyers are causing a motorcycle boom. A COVID-Triggered Breath of Life Before the pandemic, dark clouds were hanging over the motorcycle industry in the US. There were not enough new buyers to replace those who were giving up their two-wheelers. According to  Statista.com, sales peaked in 2015 when industry sales stood at about 500,000 units. But the figures plummeted in subsequent years. Motorcycle companies like Harley Davidson were on the deathbed for a long time. But then COVID-19 happened. Lockdowns, social distancing, and other […]

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Why shortages of a $1 chip sparked crisis in the global economy

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by Bloomberg from https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com The chip crunch was born out of an understandable miscalculation as the coronavirus pandemic hit last year. When Covid-19 began spreading from China to the rest of the world, many companies anticipated people would cut back as times got tough. To understand why the $450 billion semiconductor industry has lurched into crisis, a helpful place to start is a one-dollar part called a display driver. Hundreds of different kinds of chips make up the global silicon industry, with the flashiest ones from Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. going for $100 apiece to more than $1,000. Those run powerful computers or the shiny smartphone in your pocket. A display driver is mundane by contrast: Its sole purpose is to convey basic instructions for illuminating the screen on your phone, monitor or navigation system. The trouble for the chip industry — and increasingly companies beyond tech, like automakers — is that there aren’t enough display drivers to go around. Firms that make them can’t keep up with surging demand so prices are spiking. That’s contributing to short supplies and increasing costs for liquid crystal display panels, essential components for making televisions and laptops, as well as cars, airplanes and high-end refrigerators. “It’s not like you can just make do. If you have everything else, but you don’t have a display driver, then you can’t build your product,” says Stacy Rasgon, who covers the semiconductor industry for Sanford C. Bernstein. Now the crunch in a handful of such seemingly insignificant parts — power management chips are also in short supply, for example — is cascading through the global economy. Automakers like Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG have already scaled back production, leading to estimates for more than $60 billion in lost revenue for the industry

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Players dominating Electric Bike Market

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by Joe D’Allegro from https://www.cnbc.com Harley Davidson and Honda are among the dominant motorcycle makers with big plans in electric bikes. Harley also recently announced that it is spinning off a nascent electric bicycle business. Uber is among the top investors in electric scooter company Lime, which just posted its first quarterly profit, while competitor Bird is reportedly planning to soon go public via a SPAC. NIU Technologies, which makes smart scooters, has seen its share price soar. Tesla reached a $500 billion market valuation this week, a sign of its dominance in the electric vehicle market. But Elon Musk has shown no real interest in one growing EV segment: battery-powered scooters and motorcycles. An accident he suffered as a youth on a motorbike — nearly fatal, Musk has said — turned him off two-wheelers, for now. But the manufacturing of battery powered bikes is growing and consolidating, which means it’s likely to produce one or more dominant players in the years to come. The electric motorcycle and scooter market reached $30 billion in 2019, according to a June 2020 report by Preeti Wadhwani and Prasenjit Saha from the research company Global Market Insights (GMI). They estimated that the market — which includes everything from large motorcycles meant for interstate cruising to tiny stand-up scooters as used by Lime and Bird — will grow more than 4% annually for the next few years and hit $40 billion in 2026. Concerns over vehicular emissions, increasing consumer awareness about air pollution, and increasing investments by government authorities in the development of EV charging infrastructure are all expected to keep the market growing. Another factor boosting electric bike prospects is the continued improvement in batteries. E-bikes, scooters and motorcycles Electric motorcycles and scooters are still relatively pricey, and none yet matches the range

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Yamaha Tricity 300 is the ideal Covid commuter machine

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by Rob Hull from https://www.dailymail.co.uk Covid commuter: Yamaha’s three-wheel Tricity 300 can be ridden with just a car licence and used in bus lanes – is it the answer for safe pandemic transport? For those of us living or working in cities, getting around has been a whole lot more complicated in 2020. With the Government repeatedly telling us to keep away from public transport if at all possible and traffic returning to near pre-pandemic levels, as more people use their cars, many have been left to make the difficult decision of taking risks with their well-being or enduring hours a week in jams to get to work. But there could be an answer to the problem – and it comes with three wheels. It’s called the Yamaha Tricity. And while it might look like a cross between a scooter and a Transformer, it could be the ideal commuting machine during the Covid pandemic… I live in London and am one of the lucky ones who has been able to return to a coronavirus-compliant office a few days a week to escape the rigmorale of home working. But having winced each time after touching a hand-rail on the bus or grumbled at the sight of people without face masks on the underground, I began researching alternative transportation options. That’s when I stumbled across the new Tricity 300, which was released earlier this year. As is the dead giveaway in the name, it has three wheels and a 300cc (well, it’s actually 292cc) single-cylinder engine. Scooters like this are not out of the ordinary these days; Piaggio launched the first three-wheeler – the MP3 – way back in 2006, and it’s become a popular choice along with rival tripod scooters, especially among commuters and delivery riders in London and other major

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Motorcycles and motor scooters in high demand as car sales tank in Alberta

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by Helen Pike from https://www.cbc.ca Instead of sitting at home when the pandemic shuttered Alberta’s economy, some hopped on the saddle of a motorbike and hit the streets. According to statistics provided by the Motorcycle & Moped Industry Council (MMIC), sales across the province started to climb in April and May and peaked mid-summer. Year to date motorcycle sales are up 16 per cent and motor scooter sales are up 14 per cent over last year’s figures. Meanwhile, new vehicle sales are down about 26 per cent compared with January to August 2019, according to Statistics Canada. David Grummett, director of communications, said MMIC believes there was a healthy mix of new riders, returning riders and existing riders with some with vacation money burning a hole in their pockets. “There were a lot of new riders,” Grummett said “[There were people coming] back to the sport in big numbers … there were just people that wanted a new bike and maybe they weren’t going on the cruise. So they had some extra disposable cash. That seemed to be a good place to put it.” Jen Brown hadn’t been on a bike for a decade. She had taken a course and always intended to have a motorcycle of her own, but life got in the way. Until the pandemic hit. Then she found herself with extra cash usually set aside for rec-sports leagues and camping trips. So, she got a second-hand beater and, on her first solo ride, met a community of people by chance, on her first ride to Bragg Creek. ‘Everybody stepped up’ “Quite honestly, it’s what kept me sane all summer long,” Brown said. “The group became more and more eclectic, And we all sort of supported each other and helped each other out.” After that, she was

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Wary of public transport, coronavirus-hit Americans turn to bikes

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from https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a surge in bike sales across the United States, according to a major manufacturer and a half dozen retailers interviewed by Reuters. “I’m 51 and healthy, but I don’t want to get on the subway,” said John Donohue, a Brooklyn-based artist who bought a bike two weeks ago. Donohue, who doesn’t own a car, says he’s not sure when he’ll be comfortable on mass transit again. The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a surge in bike sales across the United States, according to a major manufacturer and a half dozen retailers interviewed by Reuters. Many of the purchases are by people looking for a way to get outside at a time of sweeping shutdowns and stay-at-home orders aimed at containing the virus: Even the worst affected states are allowing people out to exercise. Still, a portion of the sales, especially in urban areas, are to people like Donohue who also want to avoid the risk of contagion on buses or subways. He plans to use his new 24-gear hybrid for journeys such as regular visits to a printing shop across town that he normally travels to by subway. A key feature, he said, was the bright red panniers he added to carry his artwork. To be sure, bikes remain well down the list of U.S. commuting preferences. About 870,000 Americans, on average, commuted to work by bicycle in the five years through 2017, or about 0.6% of all workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The rate was higher in urban areas, at about 1.1%, and about 20 cities with at least 60,000 residents had rates of about 5% or more. A more recent survey, though, showed a higher percentage of U.S. workers using a bike to get to work. Private research firm Statista

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Motorcycle taxis and inclusive mobility

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from https://www.rappler.com The online platform industry – which is easy to enter, is relatively inexpensive, and is clearly innovative – is simply for now, difficult to regulate In our view, there is enough ambiguity in the law that allows for a provisional framework in regulating motorcycle taxis. A similar approach was used in dealing with Uber and Grab when they began operating in the Philippines. Even without a law, the LTFRB established a system to regulate Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) and Transportation Network Vehicle Services (TNVS) that continues to be the regulatory framework for that type of service today. The emergence of motorcycle taxis in the past few years has created a lot of debate. Replete with controversies, the motorcycle taxi business has battled car owners and drivers, law enforcers, and regulators. Some argue that it is prohibited by law as Republic Act No. 4136 or the Land and Traffic Code specifically excludes two-wheeled motor vehicles as allowable public transportation; others believe it has become the most viable option for segments of the riding public seeking out a good, reliable, and (relatively) inexpensive transport system. It is of course urgent for Congress to enact a law on motorcycle taxis. We have had enough experience to come up with good regulations. Although there are currently 9 pending bills in Congress as of this writing, in the meantime, the government must regulate pending legislation. Regulation absent legislation As a middle ground for pending legalization of motorcycle taxis, a pilot run was allowed (but limited geographically to Metro Manila and Metro Cebu and extended through March 23, 2020) by the Inter-agency Technical Working Group (TWG) created to monitor the current stream of motorcycle taxi operations. The TWG’s tasks are to set regulatory guidelines to ensure safety and security, ensure compliance of data sharing,

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Google Maps introduces a feature to make commute easy

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Google has reportedly introduced a new features in Google Maps which will offer preview of users’ commute with a map as soon as they get into the car. Tech giant Google keep on introducing new features in its navigation app Google Maps in order to enhance the user experience. Recently, the company rolled out the speed camera and accident alert features. Now, Google has reportedly introduced a new features in Google Maps which will offer preview of users’ commute with a map as soon as they get into the car. According to a report by Android Police, Google is working on a major improvement which will offer advance notification including a small preview of the route that the Maps suggest the user to take. This will offer a better idea to the driver as they will get to know about the traffic congestion in advance. The company will be using the same colour codes to inform about the traffic condition. The blue area will suggest the clear route and the orange will highlight the slow traffic movement. The roads which will appear red indicate heavy traffic. In order to access the preview users just will have to expand the notification which they will receive before their morning and afternoon commutes. The report also adds that the update consisting of the new feature has started rolling out as a server-side update and is yet to reach the Android users. Recently, Google Maps were updated with features like report a Crash, Speed alert and traffic slowdown. While the first one lets the app know about a possible crash and show others a different route, the second one alerts them about upcoming Speed Traps on the way. However, the team is rolling out the third ‘Add a report’ option in the app –

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