Telegraph | Money | Piaggio scoots to the market: “With petrol prices soaring and congestion getting worse by the day, the popularity of scooters is booming. In London they are exempt from the congestion charge and dealers helpfully point out that the total cost of ownership is less than the price of an annual Travelcard.
But the basic combination of fuel efficiency and congestion-beating journey times means that demand for the small bikes is growing around the world.
Investors will soon be able to get a look in, too. Piaggio Group, the largest European manufacturer of two-wheeled transport, last month appointed advisers to prepare for a stock exchange listing in Milan.”
The article ends with this:
“The more the gasoline price goes up, the more demand there is for our products,” Colaninno says. “We opened a sales office in the US and we’ve got double-digit sales growth there.”
Colaninno has also got some radical ideas up his sleeve. He adds that he’s invested more than EURO100m in Piaggio since buying it and expects to spend a further EURO100m this year.
That spending is paying off in new products; the group’s technical innovations include a sporty two-cylinder engine for the Aprilia off-road bike that weighs just 32kg, an 850cc motorbike with automatic transmission and bikes with hybrid electric/petrol engines.
But the most eye-catching innovation is the company’s new three-wheeled scooter, which has two wheels at the front and one at the back.
“It is safer – it brakes in half the distance that a two-wheeled scooter requires,” says Colaninno. The revolutionary design also features “automatic stabilisation”, which apparently means that the bike leans into corners for you.
Prepare to see them on the streets in the near future.
15. February 2006 at 12:01 am
RE: “an 850cc motorbike with automatic transmission”
* Is a “motorbike” a scooter or a motorcycle?
Will Piaggio produce an X9-850 scooter? If so, will it be imported to the USA?
Would they produce an auto-tranny motorcycle for the Aprilia or Moto Guzzi lines? That doesn’t seem to fit with either the Aprilia or Motor Guzzi marketing.
* Those three-wheeled thingys would not sell in the USA.
P.S. The Gilera folks retort that the Fero is concept-only and will not be built. Gilera isn’t imported to the USA anyway.
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15. February 2006 at 3:00 pm
I can only hope that they bring that 850cc automatic bike to North America. My wife’s ears stood straight up when I mentioned it.
I strongly suspect that she’s not the only one with that attitude. I know many people who do not ride because a) they wouldn’t be caught dead (or alive) on a scooter and b) they have found, when younger, that a motorcycle transmission is just too complicated and hard work in traffic.
16. February 2006 at 10:47 pm
SPECULATION
If Piaggio fields the Gilara Fero 850cc auto-tranny motorcycle… I would expect to eventually see that same engine/tranny combo as a Scarabeo-850 (in the future) and perhaps as the rumoured BMW Touring Scooter.
It would be sweet if they re-badged the Fero 850 (assuming they produce it) as a Moto Guzzi and sell it in the USA. I would buy it. Actually, if they made an auto-tranny version of the Moto Guzzi Griso I would rush to the nearest dealer… $13,500 would fit on my charge card nicely.
16. February 2006 at 10:56 pm
oh THIS little thing?
http://www.blansko.cz/clanky/05/images/moto-guzzi-griso.jpg
Maybe you could buy a used one and figure out how to stick a CVT on it. (good luck)