BMW Motorrad continues to explore the electric scooter space, and at this year’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este the German company debuted a new mobility concept, which it calls the BMW Motorrad Concept Link scooter.
A zero-emission vehicle for the new era – so says BMW’s press materials – the design is perhaps the most intriguing feature, with the core of the machine looking very similar to the BMW C Evolution electric scooter.
Alongside the rise of self-driving cars, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology is set to massively change the motorcycling landscape – arguably for the better.
The technology comes in a variety of forms, but its basics involves cars, trucks, motorcycles, and possibly even pedestrians sharing basic travel data, like which lane they are in, how fast they are going, and whether they are changing lanes, coming to a stop, or a similar action.
Being able to communicate these basic pieces of telemetry, and thus alert drivers and trigger self-driving systems, means a big safety increase for all motorists – motorcyclists especially.
Bosch estimates that one-third of motorcycle crashes could be prevented with V2V technology – basically any car-motorcycle crash where the car driver didn’t see the motorcyclist, or vice versa.
When you think about it, tires haven’t changed a great deal in the past 100 years.
Sure, there have been advancements in the construction of the tire’s carcass, and the grip properties of rubber continue to advance, but the overall package has remained virtually unchanged throughout all this development.
Thinking of how vehicles, especially motorcycles, will travel in the future, we have seen several attempts to redesign the tire. Goodyear has an intriguing concept with its spherical tire design that mimic brain coral for its tread.
Bridgestone is innovating in this space as well, working on its “airless” tire design, which uses a self-supporting tire architecture.
The day will come when we have to report to our autonomous vehicle overlords, and it will be an interesting day when that happens, as it will have big implications for the motorcycle industry.
Until autonomous vehicles become the status quo though, they will have to continue to conform to the transportation landscape as it is right now, and one of the more difficult challenges that automobile manufacturers face is how to handle motorcycles, especially as they filter and split lanes.
The Ford Motor Company is already working hard on that issue, and recently it was granted a patent by the USPTO for its lane-splitting detection system for autonomous vehicles.
Fuel injection has finally come to the two-stroke market for production motorcycles, with KTM (and thus also Husqvarna) debuting two enduro machines with transfer port injection (TPI) on their single-cylinder smokers.
This has been a long time coming in the two-wheeled space, even though we have seen TPI and direct injection on other two-stroke vehicles, like snowmobiles and personal watercraft for quite some time now.
KTM is really the last manufacturer to support two-stroke motorcycles though, so any progress in this space is a welcomed breath of life for off-road riders. New technology truly could be the savior to two-stroke motorcycles, as emission standards continue to become more restricted with each passing year.
While the Japanese brands have focused their efforts on four-stroke motorcycles, KTM and Husqvarna are showing that there is still a market for these lightweight and efficient enduro models.
There is an Austrian boat-ton of high-resolution photos waiting for you after the jump. Like…a lot. Using the Erzberg mine as a back drop, these stunning shots will probably make you run out to your local KTM dealer. They certainly have us thinking. Enjoy!
The day has finally, come. The rumors can finally be put to rest. Fuel injection for production two-strokes is officially a thing, thanks to the clever minds at KTM.
The Austrian announced today that it will bring fuel injection technology (called Transfer Port Injection) to its 2018 enduro lineup, which will debut later this May.
Two KTM models will have the new technology, the KTM 250 EXC TPI and KTM 300 EXC TPI, and they will be coming to the global market. For the USA and Canada, a third model will come to market as well, the KTM 250 XC-W TPI.
Fuel injection for two-strokes promises better fuel consumption, and it means that riders no longer have to pre-mix their fuel. KTM says that its transfer port injection technology provides a whole new experience for riding a two-stroke motorcycle, with better power and rideability.
Those of you with Sena intercoms on your helmets and motorcycles will be pleased to hear that your headsets just got a major range extension, thanks to a new smartphone app that connects to Sena’s communications system.
The idea is pretty simple, really, as the RideConnected App connects your headset via bluetooth, and to your smartphone’s internet connection, and then uses either that wifi or a cellular network to create a talk group.
This means that Sena users can communicate at an infinite range with multiple riders, so long as they have either wireless service available to them. It also means that non-riders can connect to the group talk, with their own smartphone app.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is underway in Las Vegas right now, and while usually the event doesn’t have much overlap with the motorcycle industry, Honda has decided to use CES to unveil its “Riding Assist” technology.
Honda Riding Assist is basically a creative technology package that allows a motorcycle to self-balance, without the use of gyroscopes.
Honda achieves this by raking out the motorcycle’s front forks, and then balances the motorcycle by moving the front wheel back and forth – like you’ve probably seen skilled cyclists do at traffic lights.
A few months ago, we told you that Kawasaki was working on an artificial intelligence system for motorcycles, and while the term “artificial intelligence” is thrown around too liberally, the proposal from Team Green was an interesting one for the Japanese manufacturer.
Details were light at the time, but now Kawasaki has released a demo video showing how it sees its “A.I.” system working with motorcyclists.
The demo isn’t too compelling, with many of the features being just an implementation of vehicle-to-vehcile systems with a voice-command veneer tacked on top of it, but it does show that Kawasaki is feigning interest into what the future will hold for motorcyclists.
The question will be though, when true artificial intelligence hits the mainstream, will our robot overlords be more like JARVIS or HAL 9000?
Fresh as an MBA graduate, in the very early days of Asphalt & Rubber, I had an interview with a prominent Fortune 500 company that was well-known for its 100 year plan.
This was a topic of conversation during my job interview, as I found it intriguing that a company could even pretend to predict what the world will look like in 100 years.
To find the arrogance in this notion, imagine the trying to predict things like social media, cell phones, the internet, automobiles, commercial flying, and space travel…all at the turn of the 20th century.
With the rate of change we have seen in the past 100 years, apply that same trend to the next 100 years, and you will see how futile such a prediction can be. What don’t know what we don’t know, in this regard.
So, it’s with some amusement that we share with you today BMW Motorrad’s vision for motorcycling in the next 100 years.
The German brand calls its the BMW Motorrad VISION NEXT 100, and says that the concept “embodies the BMW Group’s vision of biking in a connected world – an analogue experience in a digital age.”
Motorcyclists often romanticize about their bikes, talking about a motorcycle’s personality, or lack thereof.
This is total bullshit by the way, but there is something to be said about the connection between man and machine, as it is the same emotional bond that makes one a devout believer of one brand, and detractor to another.
Usually we make these connections through something visceral, like the sound of an engine, the power going down the road, or the handling of the chassis. Rarely does one speak about a motorcycle’s personality in the same breath as its electronics, but that might change.
This is because Kawasaki is working on an artificial intelligence (AI) project that will see its motorcycles grow and evolve personalities to compliment its owners.