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New Petrol Motorcycles still getting launched in India?

By General Posts

A motorcycle major has launched a new model to compete in mid-segment motorcycles below 750cc.

Even as Electric two-wheeler and four-wheeler demands keep increasing, why would people still want some ICE engines?

How & why global net zero emissions and electrified vehicles cannot be achieved as simply as signing international agreements? Apart from few options to generate electricity, its not really developing nations’ vehicles that consume most fuel.

READ the full Article with examples at Bikernet.com – Click Here

Editor’s Note: Views expressed or reported in the Article are those of the author alone.

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At Largest Market: Two-wheeler sales crash to 10-year-low in FY22

By General Posts

Two-wheeler sales crash to 10-year-low in FY22; motorcycles fall below 9 mn
India is the largest manufacturer of two-wheelers and also the largest market for it. (China being second)

One of the primary reasons for this downfall is the spiraling cost of fuel prices.
by John from https://www.newswwc.com/

New Delhi: Rural distress impacted the Indian two-wheeler segment, one of the largest in the world, in a big way that their sales in 2021-22 fell sharply, for the first time in ten years, to 13,466,000 units, as per the latest data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). It was in 2011-2012 that the two-wheeler sales were close to this number at 13,409,00.

( India’s Financial Year is calculated as from 01-April-2021 to 31-March-2022 )

Throughout the year, demand for motorcycles and scooters was impacted by rural distress and higher ownership cost amidst soaring fuel prices. Sales of two-wheelers, particularly motorcycles failed to gather momentum even during the festive months, leaving the companies burdened with a pile of unsold stocks. As a result, the overall sales of motorcycles fell below the 9-lakh mark for the first time since 2016-2017, SIAM report said.

One of the primary reasons for this downfall is the spiraling cost of fuel prices. Barring two months, petrol prices escalated in almost all months of FY22, sometimes even thrice a month that severely impacted the demand of entry-level motorcycles which is the primary choice of the budget-conscious low-income consumers.

New motorcycle sales are directly correlated with fuel prices, as 62% of the country’s fuel sales are consumed by the two-wheeler segment.

According to market experts, spike in auto fuel prices has triggered the rate of deferment majorly among the consumers of below 125cc two-wheelers that hold about 80% of the total market. Besides, shortage of semiconductors and high container charges have also deterred the production levels of OEMs.

Besides, frequent price hikes by the OEMs to overcome the spike in input cost coupled with moderation in rural demand hugely deterred the buying sentiments of consumers.

Additionally, electric vehicle demand continues to witness pickup in the states with higher government incentives like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Karnataka etc., which are also key markets for conventional two-wheelers.

All the segments except the two wheelers are in green. Passenger vehicle sales grew 13.2% to 30,69,499 units in FY 22 compared to 27,11,457 units in FY21. Sales of passenger cars stood at 14,67,056 units, utility vehicles at 14,89,178 units and vans at 1,13,265 units.

As fuel prices skyrocket and concerns grow over the running cost of petrol and diesel vehicles, the electric vehicles market has quietly started to build up. As fiscal 2021-22 came to a close, the green brigade — still small in numbers — seems to be coming of age, also charged by government subsidies.

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Political Agendas on Electrical Vehicles Charge Up Emotions

By General Posts

by Colby Martin from SEMA Action Network (SAN) at https://www.semasan.com

GROUNDING THE “EV” BUZZ

Political Agendas Surrounding Automobiles Charge Up Strong Emotions

The impending arrival of electric cars and trucks has caused quite a stir. Sure, everyone shares the well-intentioned notion of a healthier environment. But constant announcements about the potential phasing out of new gas-powered vehicles have enthusiasts worried about the future of the hobby. Thanks in part to a 24-hour news-cycle, the automotive-minded are forced to ponder this great unknown with greater frequency. With the topic weighing heavier on many minds, the question arises: what’s to become of the tailpipe—and when? Clearly there are crossed wires needing to be untangled.

Acronym Soup

First, we must understand the common lingo used in automotive discussions. The gasoline-sipping internal combustion engine (ICE) has long been the motivator of choice. However, the low- and zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) categories have emerged and made significant improvements in recent years. There are several different models of these cars and trucks such as electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrids, and those running on hydrogen fuel-cells. With such competition, it may seem like traditional rides could have a tougher existence in a yet-uncertain future of alternative powerplants.

Government Directives

The latest update in the automotive world came from the nation’s top office: the Biden Administration. President Joe Biden signed the “Executive Order on Strengthening American Leadership in Clean Cars and Trucks” in August. In short, the measure calls for 50% of all sales of new cars and light trucks in the US be ZEV by the year 2030. “It is the policy of my Administration to advance these objectives in order to improve our economy and public health, boost energy security, secure consumer savings, advance environmental justice, and address the climate crisis,” said President Biden.

Biden’s action was preceded by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s controversial notice last year. That order instructed the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to draft regulations requiring that all new cars and passenger trucks sold in the state be zero-emissions by 2035. Once drafted, CARB’s proposed regulations will be subject to a lengthy regulatory process, including legal, economic, and environmental analyses, public comment, and hearings. The Governor’s order is also expected to face numerous legal challenges from opponents.

Cause for Concern?

The concern surrounding EVs is understandable, but premature. Many of the proposed rules and legal mandates are far more symbolic in nature. For example, President Biden’s actions were merely issued as an Executive Order, meaning it is not a federal law and has no binding authority. In fact, the following disclaimer is included at the end of the Order:

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Directives like President Biden’s also tend to be highly aspirational with ambitious time frames for implementation. For example, many of the President’s proposed benchmarks extend beyond his time in office, giving him little say on the final product.

Realities: Supply vs. Demand

Perhaps the most direct impact to personal transportation will come from the automakers themselves. The evolving market is already experiencing highs and lows. While seeking to boost ZEV sales, major brands have been subject to factors beyond their control. Supply chain shortages and logistical issues have impeded production schedules, causing delays, and price surges. Additionally, massive investment of resources will be required for materials and retooling throughout the entire manufacturing process.

Many fundamental issues need to be resolved before any major shift to “clean” vehicles is feasible. Most importantly, more than 281 million rides share US roads—a small fraction of which are EVs. Such a massive fleet won’t be replaced anytime soon. Of course, the lion’s share are newer vehicles, which often have a life spanning a decade or longer. Also, the urge to trade-in for an electric model decreases without widespread options for “refueling.” Charging woes include long recharging time, charger availability, and standardization of hardware between brand offerings. Additionally, the U.S. electrical grid can hardly handle its current strain—let alone an entire nation needing to recharge at home or on-the-go. At this point, clear solutions appear far from sight.

Informed & Involved

Although the future of EV adoption remains to be seen, the SEMA Action Network (SAN) believes a balance can be achieved and has made this fight a top priority. Our community’s rich history of innovation should be celebrated as it continues evolving with emerging technologies. As always, the SAN opposes proposed efforts to ban the ICE and other such mandates impacting vehicles of all kinds—vintage collectibles and their fuel supply included.

With the ever-growing voice of advocates from our hobby, politicians are increasingly aware of how many passionate voters are paying attention to their actions. SAN contacts like you will receive details direct to inboxes as opportunities to act arise—stay tuned for further updates.

Meantime, please spread the word to get others involved in the good fight: CLICK semaSAN.com/Join

–IGNITED WE STAND!

About SAN: https://www.semasan.com/about

EDITOR’s NOTE:
“Here’s the wildest truth. Climate Alarmism or Climate Doom IS misinformation. Oops.” –Bandit

Polaris factory decisions controlled by Supply Chain Bottlenecks

By General Posts

By Bob Tita from https://www.wsj.com

Supply Chain Bottlenecks Drive Factory Decisions at This Maker of Boats, Motorcycles, ATVs.

Polaris is changing manufacturing processes on the fly to adapt to parts shortages; ATVs missing seats, snowmobiles without shocks.

Polaris is juggling 30 or so supply-chain constraints for its ATVs, motorcycles, snowmobiles, boats and utility terrain vehicles.

Like other manufacturers struggling with wobbly supply chains, sports-vehicle maker Polaris Inc. is deciding what to produce based on what parts it has on hand.

Polaris is changing its manufacturing and sales strategies on the fly to cope with shortages of materials and parts and an unreliable global transportation system that has disrupted precise production planning.

The company said it is juggling 30 or so supply-chain constraints for its all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, snowmobiles, boats and off-road utility vehicles. Polaris changes its plans sometimes daily for what it produces. The company switches models for a while as supply-and-logistics managers scrounge for parts and materials for other models it is unable to build.

When there aren’t enough seats in the supply pipeline to produce four-seat versions of utility terrain vehicles because of a shortage of foam padding, for example, Polaris shifts production to two-seat or three-seat models. When more seats become available, factories circle back to four-seat models or add the missing seats to vehicles that have already been assembled.

“If you’re mixing and matching, eventually you’ll attain a good product mix,” said Kenneth Pucel, operations chief for the Medina, Minn.-based company.

Companies spent decades conditioning their supply chains to deliver just enough components and materials to match production schedules to hold down costs for storing parts. The absence of backup stocks of parts left manufacturers more exposed if a few large suppliers couldn’t deliver on time.

Tight markets typically provide opportunities for some companies to siphon customers away from competitors. But retail dealers say the supply-chain disruptions, transportation bottlenecks and labor shortages for manufacturers are now so pervasive that it is hard for anyone to capitalize. Polaris dealers sold out and the company couldn’t resupply them at their normal levels; instead, customers are now placing deposits on orders sent to factories.

Polaris shipped out some snowmobiles to dealers without shock absorbers and had dealers install them later when supplies recovered.

Chris Watts, owner of America’s Motor Sports dealership in Nashville, Tenn., said he carries Polaris and other brands. But his stocks of those brands are mostly depleted as well. “Customers are buying whatever they can get their hands on,” Mr. Watts said.

Like many manufacturers, Polaris had an unexpected surge in sales during the Covid-19 pandemic. When restaurants, movie theaters and fitness centers closed, consumers shifted their spending to boats, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and other outdoor vehicles. Polaris’s retail sales in North America last year grew by 25% from 2019 and increased by 70% in the first quarter from last year.

Polaris, which last year had sales of $7 billion, has a leading share in off-road vehicles with about 40% of the North American market, according to industry analysts.

Before the pandemic, Polaris could increase orders to its parts suppliers when needed. But this time, suppliers were less responsive. After a weekslong shutdown of factories last spring to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus, stocks on hand were depleted. Making matters worse were clogged ocean ports, the freak winter storm that struck Texas in February and a ship blocking the Suez Canal that delayed vessels hauling shipping containers with Polaris’s parts and products from Asia.

Polaris said it devised workarounds to ease the company’s reliance on the hardest-to-get components, including semiconductor chips used in vehicle gauges. The company said its engineers redesigned the gauges on the fly to operate with different chip sets that are more readily available than the chips the company had been using.

When the supply of foam for seats tightened following the storm in Texas in February, Polaris built vehicles without seats for weeks and installed them later when resin for making plastic foam became available again.

About one-third of the vehicles coming off the company’s assembly lines are being held back until missing parts arrive, the company said. That is about twice the volume of new vehicles that typically need to be reworked.

The availability of shock absorbers has been particularly erratic. When shocks for snowmobiles ran out during the fall production season, Polaris shipped some snowmobiles to dealers without them and sent the shocks later for the dealers to install.

“It wasn’t efficient from a cost standpoint, but it bought us time,” Chief Executive Michael Speetzen said.

Shock absorbers for single-seat all-terrain vehicles became so scarce late last year that production managers at the Roseau, Minn., plant switched to a two-seat variant of the four-wheel motorcycles instead that used different but available suspension components. The production lines at the factory that welded metal frames and produced plastic moldings for ATVs were reset overnight to allow production of the two-seat models to begin the following morning.

“You pivot away from parts shortages. Our team is good at building what we can,” said Mr. Pucel.

Mr. Pucel said at least 10% of the company’s suppliers have been under stress since the pandemic, often struggling to obtain enough materials from their own suppliers or to come up with the money needed to purchase additional equipment to increase production. He said the number of suppliers struggling would be greater if Polaris hadn’t culled underperforming companies from its supplier base a couple of years before the pandemic.

Polaris has intervened to purchase equipment and materials for some suppliers in exchange for reduced prices. When production of plastic resin in Texas stopped because of the February storm, Polaris allocated some of its own resin to its suppliers.

In anticipation of extended higher demand, Polaris is expanding its Monterrey, Mexico, plant where some of its most popular utility terrain vehicle are assembled. The company is increasing boat production at its Elkhart, Ind., plant and reopening another in Syracuse, Ind. It has hired about 1,000 more employees in the past year, a 7% increase in the workforce.

Maintenance on equipment and rush jobs to realign assembly lines to produce different models often happen overnight or on weekends. Disruptions in production and the social-distancing procedures in plants because of Covid-19 have been rough on employees.

“The whole organization has been on high alert,” CEO Speetzen said. “It’s one of the things I worry about.”

Royal Enfield will have the highest number of new models

By General Posts

by Swaraj Baggonkar from https://www.moneycontrol.com

Royal Enfield will have the highest number of launches this year: CEO Vinod Dasari

This year, Royal Enfield is ready to introduce more models annually than ever before as the niche bike maker looks to further strengthen its iron grip on the middleweight motorcycle segment

The Eicher Motors-controlled company that specialises in building bikes with engine sizes of 350cc to 650cc, currently, has its order backlog full. This can keep its factories running for the next 2-3 months without any new bookings.

Speaking to analysts, Vinod Dasari, CEO, Royal Enfield, said: “We have a very exciting (product) pipeline. This year will probably see the highest number of new models that is ever seen from Royal Enfield in a year. And that is just the beginning of the pipeline.”

Over the last few months, Royal Enfield launched the Meteor 350 and the new Himalayan, besides offering new colours on the 650 twins – Continental GT and Interceptor. Dasari did not provide details on the models that can be expected from Royal Enfield.

“We will continue to have one new model every quarter. Because there is a delay due to COVID right now, I don’t think we will squeeze everything in but there are some very big models coming in. We are very excited about it. We will have to do all the marketing and market preparedness for that,” Dasari added.

While sales of the 650 twins in India nearly halved to 10,256 units in FY21, largely due to COVID-19 disruption, Royal Enfield believes that there is space for more 650cc products.

“Yes, there is a need to think about every platform. Not just the Twins, but Himalayan, Meteor and Classic. So we should think about every platform on how we can meet other kinds of customer requirements,” Dasari added.

The pandemic disrupted the supply chain network of the automotive industry, leading to shortages and delay of critical parts with parts manufacturers dealing with high absenteeism on the shop floor. Shortage of semiconductors, which started in Q3FY21, is still impacting output.

Royal Enfield production has also taken a hit, dropping to half of its peak output during the first two months of FY22. From 80,000 units a month, Royal Enfield sold an average of 40,000 units a month between April and May. The company, however, has an order backlog of 2-3 months.

“New model launch development takes 3-5 years depending on the complexity of the vehicle. So, the models are ready, I want to be able to have a clear visibility of the supply chain so I can launch it in enough quantity and not be short of supply. So, we may delay the launch by a month or so but I don’t see any massive changes because of that,” Dasari added.

Royal Enfield New Motorcycle Launches Will Be Highest This Year – CEO
by Arun Prakash from https://www.rushlane.com

In Dasari’s own words, “This year will probably see the highest number of new models that are ever seen from Royal Enfield in a year”.

Although Covid-19 has led to disruptions of operations at many levels, Royal Enfield is still confident to launch multiple new models in FY2022

Even if the company does not receive any new bookings, it has enough backlog orders to clear which will keep the assembly line moving for at least the next 2-3 months.

Late last year, the Chennai-based bikemaker announced that henceforth it will be launching as many four models (new and upgraded) every year which meant one new launch every quarter.

Future RE models
Since November last year, Royal Enfield has launched one brand new model in the form of Meteor 350 and updated three others including Himalayan, Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650. The brand’s next big-ticket launch is expected to be the new-gen Classic 350 which will be based on the J architecture as Meteor. Along with this, the company has planned a couple of 650cc models including a cruiser and a classic roadster.

The manufacturer is also reportedly developing a new scrambler based on the same 650cc parallel-twin chassis. The company recently filed a trademark for the same called ‘Scram’.

Another crucial new model slated to launch in the coming few months is the new roadster which goes by the name ‘Hunter’ and is expected to take on Honda CB350 H’Ness. According to Dasari, all these models are ready to be launched as they have already been in development for 3-5 years.

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

By General Posts

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 this year.

The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. A rare winter storm in Texas knocked out swaths of U.S. production. A fire at a key Japan factory will shut the facility for a month. Samsung Electronics Co. warned of a “serious imbalance” in the industry, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it can’t keep up with demand despite running factories at more than 100% of capacity.

“I have never seen anything like this in the past 20 years since our company’s founding,” said Jordan Wu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Himax Technologies Co., a leading supplier of display drivers. “Every application is short of chips.”

2021-semiconductors-chips-shortage-inline
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.

“I slashed all my projections. I was using the financial crisis as the model,” says Rasgon. “But demand was just really resilient.”

People stuck at home started buying technology — and then kept buying. They purchased better computers and bigger displays so they could work remotely. They got their kids new laptops for distance learning. They scooped up 4K televisions, game consoles, milk frothers, air fryers and immersion blenders to make life under quarantine more palatable. The pandemic turned into an extended Black Friday onlinepalooza.

Automakers were blindsided. They shut factories during the lockdown while demand crashed because no one could get to showrooms. They told suppliers to stop shipping components, including the chips that are increasingly essential for cars.

Then late last year, demand began to pick up. People wanted to get out and they didn’t want to use public transportation. Automakers reopened factories and went hat in hand to chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung. Their response? Back of the line. They couldn’t make chips fast enough for their still-loyal customers.

A year of poor planning led to carmakers’ massive chip shortage
Himax’s Jordan Wu is in the middle of the tech industry’s tempest. On a recent March morning, the bespectacled 61-year-old agreed to meet at his Taipei office to discuss the shortages and why they are so challenging to resolve. He was eager enough to talk that interview was scheduled for the same morning Bloomberg News requested it, with two of his staff joining in person and another two dialing in by phone. He wore a mask throughout the interview, speaking carefully and articulately.

Wu founded Himax in 2001 with his brother Biing-seng, now the company’s chairman. They started out making driver ICs (for integrated circuits), as they’re known in the industry, for notebook computers and monitors. They went public in 2006 and grew with the computer industry, expanding into smartphones, tablets and touch screens. Their chips are now used in scores of products, from phones and televisions to automobiles.

Wu explained that he can’t make more display drivers by pushing his workforce harder. Himax designs display drivers and then has them manufactured at a foundry like TSMC or United Microelectronics Corp. His chips are made on what’s artfully called “mature node” technology, equipment at least a couple generations behind the cutting-edge processes. These machines etch lines in silicon at a width of 16 nanometers or more, compared with 5 nanometers for high-end chips.?

The chip’s makers have seen their shares soar with strong demand
The bottleneck is that these mature chip-making lines are running flat out. Wu says the pandemic drove such strong demand that manufacturing partners can’t make enough display drivers for all the panels that go into computers, televisions and game consoles — plus all the new products that companies are putting screens into, like refrigerators, smart thermometers and car-entertainment systems.

There’s been a particular squeeze in driver ICs for automotive systems because they’re usually made on 8-inch silicon wafers, rather than more advanced 12-inch wafers. Sumco Corp., one of the leading wafer manufacturers, reported production capacity for 8-inch equipment lines was about 5,000 wafers a month in 2020 — less than it was in 2017.

No one is building more mature-node manufacturing lines because it doesn’t make economic sense. The existing lines are fully depreciated and fine-tuned for almost perfect yields, meaning basic display drivers can be made for less than a dollar and more advanced versions for not much more. Buying new equipment and starting off at lower yields would mean much higher expenses.

“Building new capacity is too expensive,” Wu says. Peers like Novatek Microelectronics Corp., also based in Taiwan, have the same constraints.

That shortfall is showing up in a spike in LCD prices. A 50-inch LCD panel for televisions doubled in price between January 2020 and this March. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matthew Kanterman projects that LCD prices will keep rising at least until the third quarter. There is a “a dire shortage” of display driver chips, he said.

LCD Prices Are Surging
Aggravating the situation is a lack of glass. Major glass makers reported accidents at their production sites, including a blackout at a Nippon Electric Glass Co.’s factory in December and an explosion at AGC Fine Techno Korea’s factory in January. Production will likely remain constrained at least through summer this year, display consultancy DSCC Co-founder Yoshio Tamura said.

On April 1, I-O Data Device Inc., a major Japanese computer peripherals maker, raised the price of their 26 LCD monitors by 5,000 yen on average, the biggest increase since they began selling the monitors two decades ago. A spokeswoman said the company can’t make any profit without the increases due to rising costs for components.

All of this has been a boon to Himax’s business. Sales are surging and its stock price has tripled since November.

But the CEO isn’t celebrating. His whole business is built around giving customers what they want, so his inability to meet their requests at such a critical time is frustrating. He doesn’t expect the crunch, especially for automotive components, to end any time soon.

“We have not reached a position where we can see the light at the end of tunnel yet,” Wu said.