While car sales have been hit hard by the Coronavirus disaster, there are small signs of a recovery in the Japanese domestic motorcycle market. According to the Japan Mini Vehicle Association, new motorcycle sales in April 2020 (125 to 250cc) were up 2.0% YOY to 7,772 units.
This is the fourth consecutive month of YOY growth. Some observers believe this is a rebound from the decline following the October 2019 sales tax hike. This growth also is partly due to the growing need by commuters to use motorcycles as an alternative to public transportation to avoid coronavirus.
The 88,300 units is the estimate by Power Research of the number of Personal Watercraft (PWC) to be produced in North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States) in 2020.
This information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.
Harley-Davidson said US sales were up 6.6% in the quarter before the pandemic ground the economy to a halt in mid-March. But sales wound up plunging 15.5% in America compared to a year ago and 20.7% internationally. Overall revenue slipped 8% from last year’s first quarter.
For the quarter, Harley-Davidson posted earnings of $69.7 million compared with $127.9 million in the same period a year ago.
Michael Aistrup
Harley-Davidson’s share in the U.S. heavyweight motorcycle market share was down 2.2 percentage points, to 48.9% and the company’s share of the heavyweight motorcycle market in Europe was 7.6% in the first quarter.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Harley has reduced planned capital spending, frozen hiring, temporarily reduced salaries, eliminated merit increases for employees in 2020 and changed the timing of new product launches in order to preserve $250 million in 2020.
April 17, 2020–Taiwan reported no new coronavirus cases on April 14, 2020, marking the first-time authorities there have reported zero new cases in more than a month. It’s also the latest achievement for a health system that first acted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in December.
Erik Martin
With a population of around 23 million, Taiwan has only 393 confirmed COVID-19 cases; six people have died from the disease. The last time Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center announced no new cases was on March 9 – 36 days ago.
As of today, India is relatively less impacted by COVID than other nations. Because of the very bold and unprecedented move of a complete lockdown for about 40 days, India has managed to restrict the number of positive cases to 17,000.
Ritvik Kulkarni
Considering that India is a country with a population of over 1 billion persons living in challenging on-ground conditions, it is a phenomenal effort of proactive and timely response from the government as well as restraint observed by citizens.
Different from the segments with 4 wheels or more, Motorcycles plants worked normally in March. The total production has been of 296 k motorcycles in the first quarter, about 7% above the same period of 2019. However, the stops in this sector started March 30 and will remain until the beginning of May.
Although motorcycles are also a way of delivering packages in big Cities, sales of motorcycles in Brazil have a closer relationship with lower income individuals who see motorcycles as an alternative to bad public transportation or even animal transportation in rural locations.
This segment of the society has a high number of informal jobs, mostly related to service, heavily impacted by the social restriction measurements. Therefore, the impact on this business for the remainder of the year should be considerably high, despite of the growth in the first quarter. PSR
The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR), a coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations and organizations, has published on their web site (www.recreationalroundtable .org) a guide for their members on the Outdoor Recreation Industry and the Coronavirus. Included on the site are Federal, State and Industry Resources, ORR’s letter to the President, Governors and Federal Government on the impact and recommendations to the Coronavirus crisis.
The site also has suggestions on what small businesses and policy makers can do to support efforts to combat the virus. The link for the informational site at ORR is: https://recreationroundtable.org/coronavirus/
PSR can support members of many of these organizations with focused and accurate forecasts of global diesel and gas engine production. PSR
Haval, the Chinese manufacturer, said it plans to build its own
engine plant in the Tula region of Russia. Work is scheduled start this month (March
2020). The planned investment in the project is US$ 270 million. This information
comes from press-service of Haval Motor Rus.
Maxim Sakov
It’s expected that the new plant will produce 80,000 engines
annually, increasing the localization level of SUVs by several thousand units
annually. Total personnel number in automotive plant exceeds 1000 people. Read
The Article
PSR Analysis: The first Russian Haval plant opened in May of 2019. Current production capacity is 80 Haval SUVs. The plant will be located on a 10,000 sq.m. site next to the Haval automotive plant. It will provide more than 300 jobs.
Claas is Shifts Production of Tucano 320 Harvester To Russia.
In April 2020, Russian plant Claas in Krasnodar will start
producing the Tucano 320 grain combine. During the first two years, this model
will be produced simultaneously in Germany and in Russia. Beginning in 2022,
the plant in Krasnodar will became the sole maker for this model. The move
opens opportunities to increase production and export volumes for the Russian
plant.
This
information comes from industry interviews and from two proprietary databases
maintained by Power Systems Research: EnginLink™ , which provides information on engines, and
OE Link™, a database of equipment manufacturers.
Market
Share: With combined plant totals of 32%, Polaris leads in production of
utility vehicles in North America. Polaris has plants in Mexico and the US. In
second position is Honda with 13%, followed by Deere with 12%.
JAPAN–Honda plans to introduce 200 electric motorcycles for postal delivery services by March 2020, and around 2,000 units are expected be introduced in FY2020. Approximately 85,000 postal delivery motorcycles are running in Japan today, and all are made by Honda. There are also three-wheel models, but most are Super Cubs, which has a reputation for reliability. At first, these EV bikes will be deployed in Tokyo, where the driving range is small, and in other local ordinance-designated cities.
Akihito Komuro
The base unit is the electric motorcycle for business use,
the Benly e-series. Honda will start selling it to corporations in April 2020.
This is a 96V system in which two lithium-ion batteries with a voltage of 48V
are connected in series. Charging is performed by removing the battery from the
vehicle and using a special charger; it takes about four hours to reach full
charge from zero.
Honda says the bike has a maximum output of 3.8PS and achieves
a 12-degree slope uphill performance with maximum load capacity. The cruising
range is 87km for Benly e: I and 43km for Benly e: II. According to Honda
officials, the bike can be operated for one day considering the delivery range,
but in most cases it will return to the post office during lunch break, and a battery
can be replaced at that time.
