BMW ends ban on gasoline motorcycle sales in US that left electrics as only option

BMW Motorrad has lifted a temporary stop-sale for its entire gasoline motorcycle line in North America, which had resulted in the company only selling electric motorbikes.

The company did not confirm exactly why the stop-sale had been put in place or what had led to its removal, but BMW Motorrad did say that its “engineering division has concluded our testing and evaluation and have determined that the voluntary stop-sale measures can be lifted.”

BMW Motorrad, the motorcycle division of the automaker BMW, issued the order last month for all of its models in the US. The stop-sale order included every model in its inventory, both new and used from all model years, except for electric motorbikes.

The BMW CE 04 is the company’s only electric model currently for sale in North America. The 31 kW (42 hp) bike is best classified as a maxi-scooter, though it takes on a futuristic design and lacks the typical deep step-through frame of most scooters.

It began production roughly two years ago when there was little in the US electric scooter market to compete with its 75 mph (121 km/h) performance. Now similarly capable electric scooters have begun to enter the market, though few can match BMW’s design chops.

The issue prompting the stop-sale notice was likely related to emissions, as the company indicated there was no safety concern for bikes already on the road and did confirm that it was “pursuing measures to further evaluate the material used in a component of its motorcycle evaporative system, which may not have been produced to material specifications.”

The news comes at a time when an increasing number of legacy motorcycle companies are entering the electric motorcycle market. Harley-Davidson was an early entrant in 2018, with BMW now playing catchup and still other companies such as Kawasaki and Triumph working on rolling out their first electric models.

via: CycleWorld