On the Money
On the Money T
he clock is definitely ticking. A purely petrolhead swansong has begun. But currently, thunderous motorcycling internal combustion lives on. Courtesy of rights owner Dorna, the 2024 season’s Moto 3, Moto 2 and MotoGP championships are set to be exclusively powered by fuel featuring a significant filthy fossil hydrocarbons reduction. Engines and EFI kit have been modified accordingly, to take regulation E40 go-go juice. Details are fairly thin, as is my “back of a fag packet” education, having studied girls rather than science at school. But I assume this refers to a bioethanol content delivering 40% carbon-neutrality. The most planet-kissing stuff currently available to bikers on UK forecourts is 95 octane E10. We know that backroom boffins at Triumph have been responsible for orchestrating E40 introduction into Moto2, given Triumph manufactures the 765cc triple “control” motors serving in that slot. And for the MotoGP premier class, Spanish energy giant Repsol has apparently entered into some sort of technical dalliance, to the same end. It’s worth noting that Repsol has extensive petro-chemical interests in Latin America, where bioethanol development and production has been big business for many years. However, the ticking clock
doesn’t stop there. Dorna is committed to entirely carbon neutral E100 in MotoGP and its support series by 2027, only another three years hence. And Dorna’s World Superbikes schedule is on the same path, with MotoGP-spec E40 mandatory this year. A trickledown to leading national events of the BSB or TT ilk is inevitable. Unfortunately, while all of this sounds splendid, it’s actually littered with obstacles. Sure, translation of motorcycle
even dissolve more sophisticated components. Then, we have to accept that the vast majority of cars in the future will be EVs powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. The PTW urban mobility sector will inevitably join that electrified firmament. At least a plethora of slo-mo electric scooters ridden by Thunbergistas and vegans should tidy up the bus lane. For the rest of us, pursuing a relatively niche pastime, our last-stand defence from a decent range and modest
Creating the sheer volume of E100 bioethanol pump fuel necessary to keep new ICE bikes rolling will be a monumental exercise sport to carbon neutrality is feasible on such a timescale. Moving the principle on to street motorcycles presents a much greater challenge. Creating the sheer volume of E100 bioethanol pump fuel necessary to keep new ICE bikes rolling will be a monumental exercise. It will also be useless for their predecessors, which will remain dependent on increasingly expensive petroleum spirit from a steadily decreasing number of refineries, as fossil fuel demand declines. There’s no real choice. Bioethanol is far too corrosive for carburettors to handle and can
weight precluded by batteries is the biofuel option. Jests aside and returning to strictly E100 issues, LatinAmerican bioethanol is produced from a huge sugar cane crop, via established agri-industrial harvesting, fermentation and distillation processes. But there’ll never be enough from Brazilian sources to ensure recreational wheels turn throughout Europe as well. The most common and efficacious alternative easily grown in bulk on UK soil is sugar beet. Mangelworzels will do pretty much the same trick.
So will spuds or cereal crops. Basically, any greenery or even agricultural waste that can be brewed and distilled into ethyl alcohol can be made to go “bang” in an ICE. Added bonus is the booze factor. Necking a splash in Coca Cola will put you in toytown. Drink petrol, on the other hand, and you’ve chosen a direct route to Valhalla. Trouble is nobody has begun to grow such E100-dedicated crops here yet – or recognised the urgent necessity to do so. And opposition on grounds of food security potentially being compromised by fuel ascendancy has mounted. We’ve got to be hard-nosed about this. In my book, historic motorcycle industry survival comes way ahead of starvation for extraneous pedestrians. Being serious for a moment, our biggest obstacle is moronic British politicians still wedded to a “zero emissions at the tailpipe” mantra. Rishi Sunak may have pushed back the ICE deadline to 2035, in line with the rest of Europe for cars, but it nevertheless remains. Besides, Sunak’s imploding Tories could soon be replaced by a Labour government. Its PM-in-waiting Keir Starmer has vowed to restore watered-down Tory climate change policies once in power. Industry lobbyists from the MCIA, NMC, MAG, etc, need
International Share Prices USA – HERE WE GO AGAIN Yet another see-saw week began with global equities sliding, driven by doubts about China’s economic health added to caution from bankers over the outlook for interest rates. But by Friday Wall Street stocks hit an alltime high, with indices pushed to record levels. Blue-chip S&P 500 firms led the charge, peaking 1.2% up. NASDAQ Composite techie superstars collectively climbed by 2.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P’s MidCap 400 were positive too, with respective 0.7% and 0.5% rises. However, concerns about China didn’t go away and were amply illustrated by the woes of NASDAQ-listed Chinese ePTW giant Niu Technologies, which has been steadily losing stock value and sales volume. Niu’s full-year sales of electric two wheelers in 2023 were 14.6% down
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to 709,802. Some 600,994 of these were sold in China and 108,808 exported to international markets, including the UK.
EUROPE – GERMANY FALLING Eurozone market indices with motorcycle industry presences were all on the back foot, with investors rattled by news that the German economy, traditionally Europe’s most muscular driving force, was spannered and now officially in recession. Due notice was taken in Frankfurt, where the Xetra Dax retreated by 0.9% and both BMW and Volkswagen shares dropped by considerably larger margins. Austria’s Wiener Börse ATX suffered a 1.6% dive and KTM parent Pierer’s stock took a kicking. Milan’s FTSE MIB fell by 0.6% and Piaggio successfully dodged any punishment whatsoever.
JAPAN – CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING Japanese investors enjoyed a good week, as quarterly results emerged highlighting positive earnings for indigenous microchip makers. The Nikkei 225 index rallied on the back of that, finishing 1.1% up. The parental entities of Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki, shortly to release their own Q3 data, rode higher on this benign mood. The Kawasaki Heavy Industries conglomerate, its powersports business shackled to an awkward squad of often underperforming divisions, didn’t.
INDIA – PARTY POOPERS The speculative surge for motorcycle manufacturing stocks, engendered by Bajaj Auto’s extravagant share buy-back proposition, petered out rapidly. A resultant
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