Yamaha targets carbon neutrality
By Ben Purvis
Yamaha Motor has set itself a series of targets to help the company achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 by turning its attention increasingly towards manufacturing low and zero-emissions vehicles and aiming to expand into new niches.
Although Yamaha only expects 2.6% of bikes to be electric by 2030, Yamaha projects a rapid increase after that, reaching 20% by 2035 and 90% adoption by 2050, with low-carbon technologies like synthetic fuel accounting for much of the remaining combustion-engined market at that stage.
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| E01 concept |
Initially the company's plans for electric vehicles will focus on Europe, where it has established that renewable energy use is high, with ASEAN markets - responsible for the majority of CO2 emissions from Yamaha products at the moment - following between 2030 and 2035.
Yamaha's electric bike output looks set to start with scooters, initially with production versions of the 125 cc-equivalent E01 and the smaller E02 concept bikes that were shown in 2019. The E01 features a fixed battery pack, able to be charged to 90% full in just an hour at a high-output charger, while the E02 adopts the idea of swappable battery packs, using a 48V system that's likely to be aligned with the standards that all four Japanese companies have agreed upon. That means the same battery that powers a future Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha or Suzuki should also slot straight into their rivals' bikes, allowing a support infrastructure to be rapidly built, ensuring fresh batteries are always near to hand.
More intriguing is the company's commitment to creating new products, targeting the space between cars and motorcycles and the market between scooters and power-assisted bicycles.
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| MW-Vision |
In the former, the plan is to create leaning multi-wheel machines derived from the 2019 MW-Vision, a roofed three-wheeler with bike-like controls and the ability to tip into corners, but something approaching car levels of safety. The assistance of the computerised stability systems Yamaha learned with its MOTOBOT and MOTOROiD self-riding bike development projects means that these vehicles are intended to offer the advantages of bikes in terms of taking up relatively little space on the road, but to be easy for anyone to use regardless of experience. The MW-Vision featured a series-hybrid powertrain, with a petrol engine operating as a generator to recharge batteries driving an electric drive system.
Further down the range, in the sub-scooter segment, Yamaha's TriTown concept - a leaning three-wheeled scooter that you stand up to ride - has already been made in limited numbers for a pilot project in Japan to test its popularity. It now appears set to be more widely produced, although at the moment it's not clear whether Yamaha intends to sell them directly to the public or if they'll be used for bike-sharing schemes where they're rented as needed.
The idea is that, like the electric scooters used by some rental schemes already, they will be able to be used like a bicycle, without the need for licences and registrations.
