the business environment is in a ' polycrisis '
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This continues to be a difficult year for registration statistics
The back story to the statistical difficulties this year has been the 2024 Q4 OEM rush to pre-register Euro 5 inventory before midnight on December 31st 2024. That was the deadline to prevent Euro 5 inventory becoming obsolete. After that cut-off the updated Euro 5 + standard came into force. Also known as Euro 5B, that part of the back story has its origins in the high standards of emissions controls that the Euro 5 regulations set when they came into force in 2020. Rather than a suite of further reductions in the levels of permitted CO2 and other toxins in motorcycle exhaust gasses, the primary focus for Euro 5 + has been the life cycle deterioration of emissions components, with special reference to the catalytic converter and the materials used inside it to control emissions. It has been known that the repeated stresses of the exhaust heat cycle in the cat have a negative effect on the long-term efficiency of the components and therefore the effectiveness of the cat and, therefore, of the exhaust itself. So, Euro 5 + was introduced as a set of measures to monitor that deterioration. It introduced new protocols for On Board Diagnostics and Engine Control Unit monitoring of an increased number of OS / Lambda sensors and other changes implemented to be able to detect the point at which the exhaust assembly( in particular) has stopped doing its job. At the end of 2024 the problem was that the regulatory upgrade would not have simply been a question of swapping out one Cat for another. There was no aftermarket fix, no kit of updated component requiring a couple of hours on the bench, no effective way of converting Euro 5 inventory to Euro 5 + compliance. Therefore, the OEM community were understandably desperate to get unsold Euro 5 units pre-registered, effectively making them used motorcycles, before they succumbed to the call of the crusher. So, there was a large element of ' use it or lose it ' about the ' pre-reg ' trauma and that is still casting a shadow over our ongoing 2025 registration data as head towards the end of the year. While a lot of the media reports seen through the course of 2025 so far have really missed the point about the 2025 data and exaggerated the degree the data appears to suggest that the motorcycle market is in recession, there is no question that the issue has compounded an already tricky set of factors. Those factors have perfect-stormed 2025 into one of the most difficult motorcycle industry seasons since the 2020 / 2021 pandemic and its impacts. Since then, it feels like the last five years have taken the uncertainty and instability that has always been a characteristic of our industry to whole new level of anxiety and intensity. From the supply chain crisis to the outbreak of war in Eastern Europe. From the resulting energy inflation to the collapse in consumer confidence in many markets, most notably Germany and, now, the uncertainty caused by tariffs and the US administration ' s less that progressive understanding of capitalism. Since 2020 the business environment has been in a ' polycrisis '- I ' ve also seen
the business environment is in a ' polycrisis '
it referenced as an ' omni-shambles '- a nexus of all possible uncertainties and instabilities. We have been monitoring the new motorcycle registration stats throughout the year. Most recently we have been analysing the latest batch of national trade association registration data for four of Europe ' s ' Big Five ' national markets( Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) for( mostly) the first nine months of the year. The conclusion has to be that any hope of real-world growth for 2025- growth that absorbs the ' pre-reg ' Euro 5 units from 2024 and still exceeds last year sufficiently to result in genuine 2025 unit growth- is becoming increasingly hard to sustain. We have had to reduce our( always highly questionable) forecasts for 2025, and not for the better. Factoring in the sales of the Q4 ' preregs ' that are not visible in the 2025 stats( but should be visible in 2025 dealership balance sheets), my expectation is that an orthodox forecast low single digit growth in most of the ' major ' markets now looks increasingly unsustainable. I hate to have to wave the white flag of surrender and concede that after factoring the ' pre-reg ' units something like a +/- 1 % overall market performance would be a good result for 2025. In the context of the tsunami of issues our market is trying to swim against, and likely to become increasingly confronted with in the next six to 12-moths, an " essentially flat " market performance will probably be the best we can hope for. Flat will be the new growth. Spain continues to be the star that shines at + 19.60 % YTD( 180,941 Units). Italy is showing some modest signs of achieving ' parity ' on 2024 by the end of this year, but at-12.84 %( 115,052 units YTD) it is entirely based on a very slight trend. The UK is definitely going to end down by the end of the year and was-14.92 % by the end of September( 72,996 units). Germany is the ' critical ward ' though at-25.93 %( 78,245) units. That though was to the end of August. At the time of writing the data for September hadn ' t dropped yet and we need that to show the same emergence from the holiday hangover that has been seen elsewhere if it isn ' t going to finish the year seriously negative, dragging the overall European picture further down with it.
Robin Bradley Publisher robin @ dealer-world. com