TK4
Well-known member
By the numbers Asia is the focus, here's Yamaha's for example:
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Does North America even matter any more for motorcycle sales ?
- Thread starter TK4
- Start date
We’re a blip on the radar. Short riding season, minimal good roads, and motorcycling being a hobby for the majority of buyers…
We will never matter to the manufacturers as much as the warmer climate regions, or regions where motorcycles are needed to travel as cars are prohibitively expensive.
We will never matter to the manufacturers as much as the warmer climate regions, or regions where motorcycles are needed to travel as cars are prohibitively expensive.
Priller
Well-known member
Depends which manufacturer you're talking about. North America is still a key market for Ducati and BMW, along with most other Euro makers.
Even for the volume Japanese manufacturers, I'd love to see a breakdown by revenue and profit. Selling a $10,000 USD bike in North America is 7x the revenue and possibly 15x the profit of a moped in Asia. So if those numbers pulled from my hindquarters are remotely accurate, selling 68,000 bikes in North America is actually equivalent to just over a million bikes sold in Asia. Still a much smaller piece of the pie, but very relevant and important to the company. Add Europe, where bigger bikes are almost always also sold, and the Western market sales are still a massive piece of their business in terms of cash, if not volume...
Very true. I remember going to Mid-Ohio in the early 2000’s for the AMA Superbike races and literally tripping over Honda RC51’s. Meanwhile back in Toronto, you were far more more likely to trip over a unicorn than an RC51.
I agree that for the most part NA doesn't matter much anymore for the Japanese Co.'s, but I think a fair bit of that has to do with what models they offer here.
Without going into detail, if the Euro companies feel it's worthwhile to register a model or platform with transport Canada that they will be lucky to sell in double digits for the life of it then I think Honda and Yamaha would be well served by bringing over some of the Euro models too, because they'd likely outsell them dramatically. Just because they made bad choices in the past shouldn't be a barrier to future imports.
I realize that one of the barriers is likely different regulations from Transport Canada creating (unnecessary) hurdles for Euro compliant bikes, but if Triumph, BMW, Piaggio and KTM see a profit in selling low volume stuff here I don't understand why Honda and Yamaha are so reticent.
Top of the list for me is the NT1100 tourer from Honda, but they have a few models that would sell here, and Yamaha as well such as the uprated Yamaha 700 Tenere's. I imagine it would be really hard finding a parking space at the local coffee roaster with all those rally-ready tenere 700's parked Infront.
While I'm a Euro bike fan, the ONLY new bike I'd be willing to put out for is the NT1100. As far as I'm concerned the cruiser model utilizing that engine is offensive and Madura-ugly, and while the adv version is a fine bike I am ready to move on from the adv platform.
Without going into detail, if the Euro companies feel it's worthwhile to register a model or platform with transport Canada that they will be lucky to sell in double digits for the life of it then I think Honda and Yamaha would be well served by bringing over some of the Euro models too, because they'd likely outsell them dramatically. Just because they made bad choices in the past shouldn't be a barrier to future imports.
I realize that one of the barriers is likely different regulations from Transport Canada creating (unnecessary) hurdles for Euro compliant bikes, but if Triumph, BMW, Piaggio and KTM see a profit in selling low volume stuff here I don't understand why Honda and Yamaha are so reticent.
Top of the list for me is the NT1100 tourer from Honda, but they have a few models that would sell here, and Yamaha as well such as the uprated Yamaha 700 Tenere's. I imagine it would be really hard finding a parking space at the local coffee roaster with all those rally-ready tenere 700's parked Infront.
While I'm a Euro bike fan, the ONLY new bike I'd be willing to put out for is the NT1100. As far as I'm concerned the cruiser model utilizing that engine is offensive and Madura-ugly, and while the adv version is a fine bike I am ready to move on from the adv platform.
I don't know enough about this but, IMO, Euro specs, Transport Canada, USA could, or should, be uniform across the board. Having to certify a vehicle in a specific G7 or G20 country is a waste of time and money. Just how different are the current standards and is there a valid reason why they could they could not be standardized? This might help to enable import and distribution of certain low volume vehicles
Too many politicians need to have a designed at home solution. Why adopt something that is freely available and works when you can spend millions (or more) trying to make your own that is 99% of the time inferior to what already exists?
As a start for emissions, having separate emissions regs for diesel,gas,light, heavy, etc doesn't make sense. If the need for emission regs is health, then you start from what is needed for health and tell manufacturers you don't care how they meet those limits. Having different limits for everything shows it is all political meddling and almost entirely unrelated to the stated goal.
Especially in a market as small as Canada. Harmonize the regulations with Europe so we can get good stuff.
The trouble is, as GG pointed out the very Canadian requirement that we employ as many people as possible in an impenetrable bureaucracy defending a myriad of sometimes outdated but always complex rules and regulations.
The more sense something makes, the smaller the chance government (regardless the party in power) will do it.
TK4
Well-known member
Back when I had to worry about such things, the only real differences between MOT and DOT standards were reflectors and bilingual labeling.
It was usually an easy fix to send the dealer a bag of stuff to be installed at PDI.
Dirty Frank
Well-known member
Sort of related does the manufacturer supply transportation Canada with the emissions test mule or does TC buy them.
Asking because i keep seeing the used rides up for sale on the GC auction site.
They even recently had a sea-do that they had broke the crank out of in "testing"
Asking because i keep seeing the used rides up for sale on the GC auction site.
They even recently had a sea-do that they had broke the crank out of in "testing"
I would hope we aren't paying for them. I know on some other certification programs manufacturers need to provide reports, a few sample products and a fee to get into the system. I expect vehicles would follow a similar path but have zero faith in any government program being efficient with taxpayer money.
Dirty Frank
Well-known member
We used to get a mishmash of standards that often had the Canadian model vastly different than what the US market would get usually in our favor.
Suzuki would ship the Oceanic spec. liter class GSXR's with a nice bump in power VS the US spec.
It would be a disappointment if they started shipping California spec. bike here.
When I first came to Aus not that long ago I could not legally ride in my Canadian purchased helmets.
Had to go get a helmet from RJays ( made in Australia) with the required Australian sticker.
Fortunately that changed a few years back to accept Euro standards.
Had to go get a helmet from RJays ( made in Australia) with the required Australian sticker.
Fortunately that changed a few years back to accept Euro standards.
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