An interesting rumor is going around about Ducati working on a seamless shifting gearbox for its street bike lineup. The rumors are grounded in patent documents, and the notion that the new gearbox would feature on Ducati’s next-generation superbike.
The engineers at Honda are busy looking at the future of how we will ride on two wheels, and their latest creation is a clutch-by-wire system for motorcycles, first spotted by the eagle eyes at Cycle World.
Similar to how a brake-by-wire system works, the clutch actuation begins by measuring the pressure applied to the clutch lever by the rider, and then sends an electronic signal to a slave cylinder, which replicates and applies that force on the clutch, either engaging or disengaging it.
I am really excited about the Suzuki brand right now. Out of the four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers, the recession affected Suzuki the most, probably more than many people realize, but the Hamamatsu brand is poised to bring out some exciting machines in the coming few years.
We have already seen Suzuki return to the MotoGP Championship, and the work there has brought about the all-new 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000 superbike, which is looking to a potent weapon in liter-bike warfare.
By 2019, we expected to see Suzuki debut all-new GSX-R600 and GSX-R750 offerings as well, which should follow the footsteps of their 1,000cc sibling, by offering modern electronics, class-leading performance figures, and cut-throat pricing.
A new Hayabusa is also rumored to be in the works, though scarce details on that machine have us feeling it is more internet rumor than real-world reality. But, Suzuki has not been bashful about teasing a turbocharged sport bike for its lineup, showing us its Recursion concept on more than one occasion.
Could we finally see a turbocharged Suzuki this year though? The rumor mill is pointing to yes…but just pointing, and the reason is because of patents.
Much of this internet rumors stems from a flood of patents that have been found, where Suzuki is patenting technology related to turbo-powered engines in motorcycles, or because of other patents that make reference or inference to being part of a turbocharged motorcycle.
Today was a pretty big day in the electric vehicle world, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in a company blog post that the California based company would not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wanted to use their technology.
While the term “good faith” is a subjective one, Musk’s announcement opens up Telsa’s arsenal of patents to any other OEM, with the hope that the adoption rate of electric vehicles at these manufacturers will be improved.
Making Telsa’s patents “open source” effectively creates a minimum standard of technology in electric vehicles, and the move now means that OEMs should only use their own EV technology if it performs better than Tesla’s.
That’s a pretty big win for consumers, since Tesla’s technology is generally highly regarded. It also means that the jumping-in point for OEMs into electric vehicles is substantially lower.
If a small manufacturer, or small product team in a large OEM, wants to start an EV project now, they can use Telsa’s patented technology to jump-start their development, and bring something to market quicker.
The tease of 2013 has to be Kawasaki and its supercharged four-cylinder engine, which the Japanese OEM debuted at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show. Showing the engine, and giving virtually no information about the intended uses of the supercharged power plant, we have been left to speculate over what Kawasaki’s intentions are in the two-wheeled forced-induction realm.
Diving through the Google’s database of patent applications though, we see that over the years Kawasaki has published a number of patents that relate to adding a supercharger to a motorcycle. Not only has Kawasaki been thinking about how to fit a supercharger into a motorcycle for some time now, but the OEM has some clever tricks up its sleeve in order to optimize its designs.
Modular motorcycle design is the wave of the future, and it would seem Ducati agrees with this same sentiment that we’ve been harping on for the past 9 months or so. Perusing through the USPTO’s records for patent applications, we found this interesting nugget submitted by Ducati Motor Holdings S.p.A. Known better as Patent Application #US 2009/0308677 A1, or “Simplified Motorcycle”, Ducati’s patent application outlines a motorcycle that is devoid of a frame, and instead has all the components of the motorcycle bolt on directly onto the motor.