News Briefs

BRP has announced closure of Evinrude outboard engine production. Q1 results (period to end of April 2020) show revenues down by -7.8% to CAN$1,229.8m; North American retail sales decreased by -1%; gross profit decreased by
-21.8% to CAN $235.1m.

PSB reports that BRP has followed the route taken by Polaris and Harley-Davidson to strengthen its balance sheet and liquidity - with an incremental CA$600m term loan maturing in May 2027. This adds to the CA$700m it has available under its revolving credit facility.

 

Avon Tyres has been hit by a recall (on both sides of the Atlantic) for 655 of its new in 2018 Cobra Chrome custom tires. The problem appears to be a potential rapid loss of pressure caused by a manufacturing error.

Some interesting 'Factoids' in a release announcing Pro Italia Motors (Bill Nation) of Glendale Ca. as Italian electric sport bike manufacturer Energica's latest new dealer in USA. Some 10% of all US motorcyclists are in California; six out of ten electric vehicles in the U.S. are driven by Californians, which today are 5.5% of all registered passenger vehicles in the state, versus less than 2% for the country overall; 2019 US EV sales dropped -9% but grew in California by +5% in 2019; California has 26,000 EV charging outlets – a third of all those in the US and is investing $2.1bn to expand that network to support the ambitious goal of replacing 5 million ICE vehicles in Ca. with electric by 2050.

MotoAmerica has announced that Öhlins has signed on as a sponsorship partner for the rescheduled 2020 Series. "I have a long history with Öhlins," said MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey. "I raced with them throughout my GP career and won all three of my World Championships using their suspension. I've always had a great relationship with them, and I'm really pleased to have Öhlins on board as a sponsorship partner of MotoAmerica."

Global assembly of Honda motorcycles and cars was stopped by a cyber attack that disrupted vehicle inspection protocols and other processes at its plants around the world on Monday 8 June. Internal servers in Tokyo were hacked with a suspected ransomware virus. Most operations were said to have resumed within 24 hours, but along with car plants in the US and Turkey, the huge Honda motorcycle manufacturing hubs in India and Brazil were still offline 48 hours later.

 

Parts Unlimited is back as supporting partner of the rescheduled 2020 MotoAmerica series that got underway at the 4-mile Road America track at Elkhart Lake, Wi. in May. "Parts Unlimited has been a partner of ours since we started and were actually one of the first companies that came on board," said MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey.


Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, B&B, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news