You’ve seen plenty of electric cars. When did you last see an electric motorcycle? The number on Britain’s roads is under 1% — and it’s been falling for 18 months.
We dig into the DfT’s own figures to show what stalled electric motorcycling in the UK — and why the answer isn’t money.
MAG is the UK’s largest organisation representing motorcyclists.
● 📝 Full story + the data: https://mag-uk.org/where-have-all-the-electric-motorcycles-gone/
● 🔗 Join MAG Supporters: https://mag-uk.org/motorcycle-action-group-membership/
● 🌐 mag-uk.org
Chapters:
0:00 Cars vs bikes
1:48 The 5% threshold
3:37 Boom, then bust
4:37 It’s not the money
5:32 My hypothesis
7:11 Bin the ban
#MAG #Motorcycles #ElectricMotorcycles #Motorcycling #RidersRights #BinTheBan
Photo by Harley-Davidson on Unsplash
26 Comments
I see several, I'd go as far as to say many, unregistered electric motorcycles every day on the roads. If the police stopped and seized every one I see just on the Romford Road in east London, by the end of the day they'd have a small mountain of them.
Come the next general election Labour will be out and the EV mandate will be cancelled and good riddance. EV’s are not the future, especially not motorcycles. Common sense will prevail.
Used an electric bike since 2019, was still called a climate denying racist by strangers and my government so yesterday I bought a small Honda petrol moped, no more range anxiety. They'll call you what they want anyway 🤷
Correlation is not causation. I would say it's more likely the economic downturn caused by the start of the full scale invasion of Ukraine that caused this stagnation as people chose the cheaper option when purchasing their new bike which would have been the ICE bike rather than the BEV bike.
It would be ironic if the remaining 2 stroke motorcycles, on UK roads, outnumbers the number of electric motorcycles.
I believe the slow adoption rate of full size electric motorcycles is due to the lack of models available and relatively high cost. Once we have quality Chinese models in the market and buyers have already lived with an electric car for a few years and enjoyed the benefits the transition will speed up.
easy no one wants them ?
im sticking with my old honda bikes dont want to buy a electric bike
I own 7 motorcycles, none are electric. Cant bother women and children with no sounds be real.
electric is best for mopeds and similar size for local use say up to 50 mph and 30-40 miles range, bigger faster and more range needs petrol engines.
I think you're drawing a false conclusion suggesting the collapse in electric motorcycle sales is in any way linked to the government consultation on the future of electric motorcycles, I'd suggest the vast majority of purchasers had no idea the consultation was going on. Instead I'm sure they were far more focused on whether a lettuce would last longer than the prime minister who tanked the economy.
I would be interested in a breakdown of the types of e-Motos sold over the period. Are they 50cc/125cc Scooter equivalents, or bigger faster machines. Are there any clues as to the purchasers, were they private or fleet sales?
My gut feeling based on the considerable number of Dominoes, Just Eat etc Niu electric scooters I saw running round London post-Covid is that growth in sales coincided with the growth in home delivery services, several of which invested in large branded fleets of Niu electric scooters.
Three years on from that, those bikes would have been reaching the end of their warranties, needing MOTs and likely up for sale.
In the meantime, delivery riders now work via several apps rather than a single company. I notice my local Dominoes no longer has a fleet of branded scooters outside, the huge warehouse in Wembley with the fleet of bright yellow bikes is closed down and almost all the delivery riders now sit astride a Honda PCX with two or more smartphones clamped to the handlebars.
I use electric motorbike. The government decided to road tax them after people started buying them. A 50 mile range electric motorbike is same tax as a 250 mile range ice. MOT each year is also a faff with electric as nothing to check. If the brakes don't work electric motorbikes stop from regen, no emissions so no point in a electric motorbike MOT with legal duty to maintain a good condition machine. Electric motorbikes are lovely but Labour have not taxed them correct or bothered altering MOT rules for vehicles with no likely defects
In my opinion the initial uptake of electric bikes was driven primarily by curiosity and need by some to have the latest toy, the subsequent lull is driven by factors such as price and the failure of E bikes to live up to manufacturer claims for overall useability. Customers, or should that be consumers as the masses are now regarded, dipped their toes in the market and found the experience to be underwhelming. The government is intent on removing motorcycles from the roads and the vast majority of other road users don't care if 'the few' lose the freedom to ride because they don't 'get it' anyway.
Hondas 125 eclectic equivalent costs about £13000. the CB125f costs £3250. The later will give you about 170MPG and a tank will go 400 miles or so before refilling. I know I have one and it's a great little run-around. I can't see any advantage in getting the electric just to charge it up with electricity drawn from fossil fuel or ecological damaging and expensive renewables. Maybe later?
If any Electric transport was viable there wouldn't have to be mandates or incentives.
This fact is irrelevant to the globalist governments.
When I was a kid my siblings & I played around with Scalectrix. That is, small electric cars running in a slot. I believe that small electric motorbikes were also available. And then I grew up, matured & stopped playing around with toy electric vehicles as I matured onto the internal combustion engine. I feel the same way even today, especially given the propensity for electric cars to self-combust unexpectedly. Electric vehicles; you can keep 'em.
I was at bike night at Pinewood, Bracknell, last night. There was a Zero, completely outnumbered obviously.
Bikes in general are disappearing because quite frankly if you’ve got one and the local chavs spot it they’ll either take it from your house or off you while your riding it and the police will do F all , I’d love another motorbike but I couldn’t have one where I live in Manchester I’d need to live somewhere quieter like wales or Scotland
Grumpy old men aren't going to buy EVs so manufacturers aren't going to make them. Having recently spent the best part of a grand getting the valve clearances done on my bike I have no idea why people put up with them.
Have several bikes including an Electric Motion trials bike. Also have an electric car- Mini. Problem with the bigger bikes is the range. My trials bike lasts all day on a single charge but am not covering many miles as its trials or green lanes. Big challenge I feel is the damage done by the hoodie brigade as once again we are being tarred with the same brush.
1.8 million suckers.
I don't want a motorcycle that doesn't have an internal combustion engine..
I could say the same thing about motorcycles with sidecars. There are actually a lot of them around here. But I hardly ever see them on the road. And what’s that supposed to mean?!?
Too expensive and too slow.
The size of the EV car market is mostly from people having company cars or company lease hire cars.
All of these are subsidised by the companies where the finance deposit is funded by the company and written of as a taxable expense and the cars are given back at the end of the lease hire term were the users of the vehicle incur zero cost to hand it back and pick up a new one.
Normal people purchasing and owning their own EV is a minimal section of the market.
Last time I looked there aren’t many company subsidised / funded motorcycles that people can have as their private vehicle.
FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO electric motorcycle uptake. I would be interested to see the proportionate numbers of similar category motorcycle purchases, moped type, 125 type, small motorbike type and large motorbike type. I suspect large motorcycles have next to no electric uptake. I never, ever see an electric motorbike, no matter where I go. It's only when you go into cities and large towns, that electric two-wheelers become commonplace. Stand-up scooters proliferate. Electric bicycles, both legal and less so, also proliferate. Electrical mobility has become a new freedom that citizens actually want. It's dead cheap, easy to use, clean and a genuine possibility. The one fly in the ointment, is that our legislators are running ten years behind lived reality. I see Police proudly seizing a Deliveroo rider's electric bike, ready to crush it. Young lads who had the unmitigated gall to use an electric scooter on the public highway, have their transportation taken and destroyed. I have yet to see dozens of electric two-wheeler accidents spread across the headlines. I'm sure there are some, but a tiny proportion of the users of these vehicles. In some ways the mobility habits of humans have changed to match what's available, rather than what is legislated to be permitted. If your graphs included ever electrically powered two-wheeler, legal or less so, I suggest the picture would be very different. Electric motorbikes, what we recognise as motorbikes, are pretty much only useful in urban environments, even there, they can be too big and clunky foe modern conditions. They mimic the technology of our father's generation, where weight and complexity rules the day. None of this is relevant any longer, as one's lived experience can vouch for. I think we can all agree that battery technology and cost simply hasn't reached the point where electrically powered full sized motorbikes make any real sense yet. At best they're too heavy for what they can do, at worst their price is a literal joke. They cannot do a sensible distance between top-ups and even then they charge up dreadfully slowly. Until they can compete in all ways with traditional technology, they're a bit of a dead duck. Totally unlike their smaller brethren. Towns are becoming ever less car friendly, with trams, busses and small electric transport of every kind, being ever more prevalent. There still aren't enough zero emissions cars in existence to make car's presence in cities a sensible choice anymore. ULEZ and similar policies across numerous large urban areas, in order to clean up the air we all breathe, is sensible, even if it's inconvenient in the short term. London pollution has dropped dramatically. It's a fact. Now it's Heathrow and tyre/brake dust pollution that is the next particulate target. As air pollution goes its chemical vapours from outside London, drifting in from agriculture, that's the next big issue to be tackled by the scientists. This is all a bit academic at our level though. Perhaps we need to take all powered two-wheelers under our wing, to get the few things we want from legislation enacted? Obviously I'm only too delighted to hand this extra work over into your capable hands!
3:18 …. 5% level… noticing more EV cars on the road…
there is also the ‘frequency illusion’ [Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or red car theory]
Meaning that you notice things more often because you become aware that they exist.
As in that – if you buy an EV you suddenly start to notice every other EV on the road because you own one of them