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MotoAmerica , North America ' s motorcycle road racing series , has said that Aprilia will again be an official partner of the 2023 MotoAmerica Championship , with its RS 660 a major player in the REV ' IT ! Twins Cup title chase .
At a media event held at the brand ' s European research and development facility in Offenbach , Germany , Honda has outlined the next steps its European operations will take to provide new energy services products to European consumers . This included the brand ' s first electric moped - the MY23 swappable battery pack equipped EM1e : as part of its " multi-pathway approach towards Honda ' s global target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 ".
The FIM World Supercross Championship ( WSX ) will stage its promised Asian debut in Singapore as Round 3 of the 2023 series on September 30 . WSX is promoted by SX Global of Australia and funded by Abu Dhabi based Mubadala Investment Company .
Aprilia and the Piaggio Group are to donate € 200,000 to civil protection , in favour of the communities of Emilia-Romagna affected by the floods .
Honda Motor Co ., Ltd . and GS Yuasa International Ltd . have announced a 50 / 50 joint venture agreement to establish a high-capacity , high-output lithium-ion battery development business ( mainly for EVs ) at Kyoto , Japan .
Japanese ' Big Four ' join forces on hydrogen By Ben Purvis
Despite years of trying , there ' s still no clear solution to the packaging problems associated with building battery-powered motorcycles - particularly when it comes to highperformance or long-range machines - as even the best battery technology is still several orders of magnitude worse than gasoline when it comes to energy-density . As a result , companies are looking for other routes to the goal of carbon neutrality , and now Japan ' s ' Big Four ' have joined forces to pursue the idea of hydrogen-fuelled motorcycles . Hydrogen can be used in two ways to power bikes . It can be burnt , like petrol , in an internal combustion engine , or it can be used in a hydrogen fuel cell to replace the batteries of an electric bike . The new Japanese project - dubbed ' HySE ' - focuses on the former . Each company has a specific role to play in the project . Honda is concentrating on ' model-based ' development of the hydrogenpowered engines themselves - i . e . computer simulations - while Suzuki is responsible for studying their functionality , performance and reliability . Meanwhile , Yamaha and Kawasaki Motors , which both already have experience of hydrogen combustion engines , are working on ' hands-on ' research with real prototypes . Yamaha is also tackling the difficult subject of developing a hydrogen refuelling system and the hydrogen tanks that would be needed on ' small mobility ' vehicles , including motorcycles . The four are being supported by two industry giants , Toyota and Kawasaki Heavy Industries , both with their own hydrogen infrastructure projects . Kawasaki Motors has been the most
' working together on hydrogenpowered motorcycle engines '
outspoken of the Japanese ' Big Four ' as an advocate of hydrogen combustion engines and had previously been working on the technology in partnership with Yamaha . Kawasaki has already shown designs for a hydrogen-fuelled , supercharged four-cylinder sportstouring bike , using an engine derived from the 1000 cc four in its H2 model . A prototype for the engine has also been shown already , modified to include direct fuel injection . Both forced-induction and direct injection are essential in small , highperformance hydrogen-fuelled combustion engines . The former because , while hydrogen is more energy-dense than petrol , weight-for-weight , it needs much more air in the mixture . A turbo or supercharger compresses the air to get more into the cylinder . The direct injection is also vital , as it means the hydrogen can be added after the valves are closed without displacing air that ' s already in the combustion chamber . Yamaha has also been working on hydrogen combustion engines , developing a V8 that ' s used in a Toyota racing car in Japan . Huge problems remain when it comes to making hydrogen a viable fuel for motorcycles . While it ' s carbon-neutral when it burns , with water being the main component of the exhaust , it ' s very energy-intensive to get hydrogen from water via electrolysis , and other forms of hydrogen come from processes that create their own pollution . The storage and transport of hydrogen also poses significant problems , as it needs to be cryogenically stored at incredibly low temperatures to reach liquid form or placed under huge pressure to get a substantial amount into a tank . Even as a liquid , it ' s far less efficient , volumetrically , than petrol - you ' d need a substantially larger fuel tank to get the same range , leading to weight and packaging problems that are not dissimilar to those faced by battery-powered electric bikes . These are among the challenges facing the HySE project . Its chairman , Kenji Komatsu , who ' s also Executive Officer of Technical Research and Development at Yamaha Motor , said : " We are extremely pleased to announce the planned formation of the association . There are many challenges in the development of hydrogen-powered engines , but we hope to see the association ' s activities advance the fundamental research in order to meet those challenges . " We are committed to this endeavour with a sense of mission to preserve the use of internal combustion engines , which epitomise the long-time efforts that our predecessors have invested ."