The tsunami of strategic, regulatory, market and vendor news continues unabated - who said there was never any reason to read the industry magazines in the summer?
Two months ago, I wrote about the new motorcycle exhaust silencer anti-tampering regulations, one of three or four big regulatory or strategic issues that are at various stages of gestation.
The anti-tampering regulations are the most urgent in that they become effective later this year. But pay attention too to what is happening at the Connected Motorcycle Consortium, to the Japanese 'Big Four' manufacturers finding common cause to explore the potential for hydrogen use in motorcycles, at the Swappable Battery Consortium, and, my particular cause celebre, the role that so-called 'synthetic gasoline' ('synth-gas' - also known as eFuel) could have to play in the future of the motorcycle and automotive industries - in fact especially in the larger displacement motorcycle market.
The anti-tampering regulations are primarily intended to prevent manufacturers and their dealers from selling so-called 'de-kat' systems, or more particularly, negating 'dB killers' and other techniques and methods by which riders can operate their machines without adherence to the prevailing laws.
This is an issue where emissions and sound are intertwined, despite the technical differences involved in how to reduce them and enforcing that reduction.
Basically, in-play is a suite of measures that make it as close to impossible as can be achieved for riders to bypass the regulations. To, literally, prevent those exhaust properties and characteristics that exist to reduce noise from being "tampered with".
'hurrah for our side'
The automotive industry learned the hard way. After many failed and expensive lobby efforts from the 1950s (laminated windshields) onwards, right up to seat belts, roll cages, crumple zones, airbag production quality and related safety standards - they learned that safety sells. They, and us in the motorcycle market, have now also been learning that clean and green also sells.
On an intellectual level, I have sympathy with the classic liberal interpretation of all laws being bad laws. However, as civil society discovered the first time it passed laws to try and keep you safe from being murdered, some laws actually are 'advisable'. With no disrespect to my former Politics tutors, in my world view, keeping the planet healthy and able to host our species definitely qualifies as "good laws", so "eat it".
The really, really good news though is that after more than 20 years of getting organised and professional about its industry, its products and its customers, the motorcycle market's trade associations and OEMs (in Europe and Japan at least) have managed to create a total volte face in the motorcycle sector's reputation as a 'worthy' transport solution.
They have done this so successfully that when matters such as stricter anti-tampering laws get into the regulatory crosshairs, we have the organisational infrastructure, communications channels, and, importantly, trust to use our influence responsibly. It is our industry itself whose views were sought and whose input has been used to author delivery of the regulatory requirement.
Which means that rather than having ill-conceived, counterproductive rule sets imposed on us, it is our expertise and knowledge that has been leveraged. Hurrah for our side, I say.
Hurrah too, ironically, for the economic and employment lobbying power of the German automotive industry. The triumvirate of behemoths that are BMW, VAG and Mercedes Benz (and others) have ultimately been able to bring a massive dose of practicality and environmentally beneficial infrastructure thinking to the EU's 2035 zero-emissions regulations.
The occupants of The Berlaymont, the national representatives that sit on the Council of the European Union (formerly called the Council of Ministers) and the elected consumer representatives in the European Parliament have been brought into alignment and, where accepting eFuels into the 2035 solution mix is concerned, are now, finally, singing from the same instruction manual.
I already mentioned this last month, but Hallelujah and Praise the Lord - I just cannot help wanting to mention it again. This is a success story for the ages and one that should be sung loud and proud from the highest and cleanest of hilltops.
It is a HUGE concession. An entirely logical one, and one that, actually, if anything, simply demonstrates the extent to which the EU brought its existing and traditional mechanisms of rule writing into disrepute by failing to acknowledge that other solutions are available.
It is a change in the direction of travel that, in and of itself, acts as a massive advocate for bringing consumers and industry together inside the tent. It is a classic advert and case study of both sides - regulators and regulated - working with, rather than against, consumer sentiment in order to achieve best practice outcomes.
In the specific case of the motorcycle anti-tampering regulations, I have already been picking up negativity and pushback about my prior remarks, from those who point to the compromise of rights and freedom of choice they represent, and the (theoretical) potential for negative economic impact it is perceived as having - forcing factory closures and lay-offs as existing retro-fit exhaust technology becomes obsolete.
All of which, as the original 1996 Motorcycle Multi-Directive itself proved, is arrant nonsense, of course. That package of regulations marked the first serious and coordinated attempt to create a framework within which motorcycle noise, in particular, could be addressed.
In 1996, the year before I started this magazine, I hosted a half day industry meeting at what turned out to be the very last IFMA at Cologne. At this symposium, the rule writers (at what was then known as DG III) addressed some 200 people from the aftermarket and managed to create context for the new norms. The outcome of the 1996 Multi-Directive was that a decade later, the number of exhaust brands being made and sold in Europe had pretty much doubled and the number of aftermarket exhausts being installed had steepled.
In addition to being good for health, good for safety, good for the environment, it turns out that regulations and standards can, after all, also be good for business. Not always, for sure, but as the years have turned into decades, that has increasingly become the case more often than not - safety does sell, but so too does clean air, a healthy planet and peace and quiet.
