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It's that time of year when we try to imitate the ghost of motorcycling future and predict what's coming in the new year. It's always guaranteed we'll get some of our predictions wrong, and that's especially true this year as some of us are taking opposite sides of the same topics.
We asked each writer to make one prediction and one long-shot prediction. Here's what they had to say.
Jen Dunstan: New energy in the electric motorcycle space and Ducati scales back ambitions
The electric motorcycle market got a jolt of new energy from Kawasaki's wave of EV model debuts this past year. It started small with the launch of its balance bike, the Elektrode, followed up by announcements of the fully electric Ninja e-1 and Z e-1, and the crescendo being the global premiere of the first production hybrid motorcycle — the Ninja 7 Hybrid. Kawasaki’s entry into the electric market is significant because it is a huge indicator that one of the biggest motorcycling brands is investing heavily into the new space. Now that one of the "Big Four" Japanese manufacturers has claimed a stake in the market, will the others come to compete like they have in so many other bike-building battles of the past? A competitive streak runs strong in the Japanese brands, and Honda has big plans of its own. My prediction is that Kawasaki's bold move into electric motorcycles is going to spark a new technological "arms race" in the EV category.
Ducati is on fire these days. Racking up MotoGP championships, flooding the grid with their bikes, Marc Márquez making the switch from that "other brand in red," and sales look to be strong, too. Yet I can't fight the tingling feeling that they may have bitten off more than they can chew with both the Moto-E championship commitments and their latest foray into building a motocross bike to compete in the Italian Motocross Championship. These are both resource- and labor-intensive projects that the Italian brand has to build from the ground up. They are both very demanding of any engineering department, and require a strong dedication to the road ahead. While many seem to think the Volkswagen Group that owns Ducati has never-ending pockets, there comes a time when even the most cherished pet projects will get the axe. As the world economy gets more turbulent, big companies generally like to retreat back to what they know best. Motocross racing and electric bikes aren't it for the Italian maker. My long-shot prediction is that one of these projects will be dropped. I would be happy to be proven wrong, but we will wait and see.
Dustin Wheelen: Harley-Davidson branches out and electrics face a rough road ahead
Some yearly predictions are more like certainties. Adventure bikes will sell well. New parallel twins will have a 270-degree crank. Yamaha won't release the R9 (prove me wrong, Yamaha, I dare ya). If I'm making a prediction, it'd better be bold. So I'm going out on a limb and saying that Harley-Davidson will go beyond its comfort zone and enter a new market segment in 2024.
That's right, I'm entrusting The Motor Company to admit the error of its ways and reverse course. Sounds crazy, I know, but hear me out. Harley recently reported its Q3 2023 sales figures and they weren't pretty. The brand's unit sales plummeted 24% in Asia and fell 16% worldwide. What's worse, purchases dipped by 15% in North America. With customers no longer buying as many of the same old baggers and Softails, it's time for new models to attract new blood. I should probably label this one my long-shot prediction, but bring in the Pan America 975 or, dare I say, the Bronx. Heck, even LiveWire is working on another S2-based model.
Speaking of LiveWire, the only thing more troubling than H-D's Q3 performance is its sub-brand's. The electric spinoff went from selling 206 units in Q3 2022 to selling only 50 units in Q3 2023. That's a freefall of 76%. Electric motorcycle and scooter sales aren't doing so well overall. Through the first 10 months of 2023, European customers purchased 20% fewer e-powered two-wheelers. The frosty response to Kawasaki's first all-electric models, the Ninja e-1 and Z e-1, doesn't bode well for the category either. I guess I'm taking the opposite side of the argument from Jen — or maybe she's looking at the long term and I'm talking about the short term — but I wouldn't be surprised if the segment experienced a cold spell for the foreseeable future. At least until Honda unveils its first electric motorcycles in 2025.
Spenser Robert: Electric bike startups wither on the vine and Triumph (or Ducati) wins a motocross championship
The quickest way to get an eye roll from His Eminence in Chief, Lance Oliver, is to suggest a story idea about an electric motorcycle startup. For the last couple years, we've been inundated with hype for e-motos that promise the range, performance, and pricing of our dreams, only to deliver machines late and under spec — if they get delivered at all. So, for the most part, we've stopped covering two-wheeled vaporware unless we can test them ourselves and confidently say what is or is not real. Between the lack of cheap money, growing consumer skepticism, and continued technological barriers, I suspect this next year will see the bubble burst on a great many electric motorcycle startups. I like electric bikes, to be clear. I think they're wicked fun and open the doors to new riders in a way that ICE-only models simply will not. But there are only so many broken promises the general public can take before our eyes roll in unison with Lance's.
Speaking of lofty specs and promises! My famously opaque crystal ball tells me next year will see a motocross championship from either Triumph or Ducati (possibly both?) as they make their debut into the dirt bike market. Triumph has long been teasing their MX model, with big names like Ricky Carmichael and Iván Cervantes working on the development, while Ducati pulled off a major surprise this year when it announced a dirt-going model of its own, with Alessandro Lupino as the pilot and the great Antonio Cairoli as test rider. Both OEMs have deep pockets, strong racing pedigree, and a lot to prove against the established players. And while an AMA SuperMotocross championship is probably more than a few years away (KTM didn't win one of those until 2012), I don't think it's completely unreasonable to predict that Hinckley or Bologna could pull off a European championship on their very first try.
Zack Courts: The rise of singles and two-wheelers from a car company
The singles shall rise. Motorcycle manufacturers have been obsessed in recent years with making their products easier and less expensive to produce. A parallel twin, as an example, can have the same number of valves as a V-twin, but half as many camshafts and cylinder heads to build. Why not just make single-cylinder engines, then? Triumph’s new TR Series is a good example of how companies often employ singles — building down to meet buyers at a lower price point. But, Royal Enfield's new Himalayan seems to be on the precipice of demonstrating that singles can be flagships, both for a brand and a category. Not to mention Ducati's new hyper thumper, which stretches into a strata of performance that will have mid-size twins looking over their shoulders.
As for a long-shot prediction, these are trickier. My gut tells me that automotive companies will continue to bridge the gap to two wheels. Every now and then we see a bicycle or some sort of oddball, prototype motorcycle-esque thing from the four-wheel industry, and I say 2024 will see a rise in these machines. Luxury brands and households names on the auto side are saddled with the same reality — population densities are growing and single-track mobility makes more and more sense. Get ready for more bonafide electric and/or hybrid two-wheelers from pure car brands.
Ari Henning: A lot more CFMOTOs and fewer options for off-roaders
Hot on the heels of my praise for the 450SS as a favorite motorcycle of 2023, I foresee an increase in CFMOTOs on the road in 2024. With more models and more dealerships, CFMOTO is poised to claim American market share.
CFMOTO has sold ATVs and UTVs in the United States for years, but it only turned its attention toward two-wheeled products recently, introducing a slew of bikes in 2022. For 2023, the lineup included 11 models spanning everything from the 800 Ibex ADV to the 125 cc Papio plaything. Among the possible 2024 models are 675 cc triple and 500 cc inline-four sport bike prototypes, filling a middleweight sport bike void left by the Japanese and offering direct competition for Kawasaki’s exciting ZX-4RR.
To help hawk its wares, CFMOTO says it has expanded its dealer network from roughly 200 doors in 2022 to 300 in 2023. For reference, Moto Guzzi has less than 100 U.S. dealerships, and America's most dominant brand, Harley-Davidson, has about 700. My local multi-line dealer is one of those new franchises, and the salespeople are pumped to have affordable, fun, full-featured bikes on offer, even if most of them aren't as refined or functional as more expensive Japanese or European models. With bikes rolling in and the salesforce in place, I'm already seeing CFMOTOs on the road here in Los Angeles, and I fully expect that trend to accelerate.
As for my long-shot prediction, it's a pessimistic one, unfortunately. I've been riding a fair amount of off-road these past few years, and witnessing a lot of trail erosion due to UTV traffic. Side-by-side use has skyrocketed (at the trailheads I frequent, they outnumber bikes six to one), and even modest UTVs can tackle routes trucks can't, so once-safe single-track and technical terrain is getting widened and whooped-out. I expect it won't be long before the authorities do something about it, which usually means closing down trails and open-use areas rather than regulating their use.
Spurgeon Dunbar: More off-road focused ADV bikes and some come to the U.S.
When I bought my 2021 KTM 890 Adventure R Rally, it was really in a class all its own. KTM took a stock 890, upgraded it with a top-of-the-line off-road suspension, added a bunch of tricked-out pieces from its PowerParts catalog, and called it a limited-edition model. A model which is returning in 2024. When the presale was announced earlier this year, all 700 worldwide units quickly sold. Other manufacturers have taken note and are following suit, most notably Ducati with its announcement of a DesertX Rally and Yamaha with the newest variant of their Ténéré 700 line, the Extreme. I predict we will see this off-road variant trend continue with at least one more OEM bringing a "Rally version" to market before the end of 2024.
Unfortunately for American fans of Team Tuning Fork, the Ténéré 700 Extreme I just mentioned has only been announced for the European market, much like the current World Raid and World Rally editions. Why Yamaha doesn't import these motorcycles to the United States, where we have arguably more access to off-road ADV-riding than Europeans do, is beyond me. My long-shot prediction is that Yamaha gets its act together and gives the American ADV market access to the Ténéré variants already on sale in Europe.
Lance Oliver: MM93 to finish third and a bit of a rant
When Marc Márquez was smiling after his first ride on a Ducati at the post-season test, some began predicting another MotoGP championship for MM93. I don't think it will be that simple. I'm predicting Márquez will finish the 2024 season third in the standings and a ticked-off and motivated Jorge Martín will win the title. And following that brief-and-to-the-point prediction, I'll move on to my more complicated and insincere long-shot prediction (which Spenser unknowingly foreshadowed above).
My long-shot prediction is that a small, North American motorcycle company will keep its promises to customers and meet its goals in 2024. OK, I'm being overly snarky and no doubt getting myself on the enemies list of every struggling entrepreneur in the industry. I know it's extremely difficult to start up and sustain a small motorcycle manufacturing outfit — admittedly well beyond my talent and energy level. But I also feel sorry for all the customers out there who put down deposits, or even full purchase prices, on motorcycles that seem to never materialize.
The landscape is littered with projections and promises that haven't happened. Sondors promised a highway-capable electric motorcycle for around $5,000, then delivered a more expensive, lower spec product that came in last on Zack's 2023 Daily Rider leaderboard, the exact environment where an electric motorcycle should shine. Chatter has gone from excited anticipation to discussions of class-action lawsuits or filing government complaints by customers who paid deposits or even full purchase prices and are now being ghosted by Sondors, which by all appearances seems to be out of business without publicly saying so. Meanwhile, it's been two years since I talked to Damon Motorcycles CEO Jay Giraud and instead of deliveries of HyperSports and HyperFighters, 2023 brought press releases on a partnership in Indonesia and, lately, plans for a reverse merger and subsequent listing on the NASDAQ market. Oh, and Instagram posts showing a restyled HyperSport, now with wings, though it appears the plans to build a factory in British Columbia have been abandoned. Curtiss continues to talk world domination and promises to hit its goal of building one motorcycle a week in 2024.
The Harley-Davidson spinoff, LiveWire, which originally projected sales of 100,000 units by 2026, sold 50 motorcycles in the third quarter of this year. I can't be upset with LiveWire, however, because the company is actually delivering motorcycles to customers, so the only ones losing money are Harley-Davidson and other investors. Lightning has also struggled to produce and deliver bikes. It's not just electric motorcycles, either. Back in 2021, Buell said it would introduce 10 new models by 2024. Now the plan seems to be three new models in 2025, but so far, there's just the two that existed when the current company bought the assets of the previous iteration of Buell.
I'm going to be an optimist for a change and predict that someone will meet goals and keep promises in 2024. But it's a long shot.
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