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AU
Edited Date/Time
2/13/2018 5:57pm
Just a bit of a different spin on this development battle that Japan seems to be losing....
Maybe they don't care! Motocross is not big in Japan, not as big as it is in Europe/USA. They still make a good product, just not as good as there European counterpart.
Is it possible that this doesn't bother them? Maybe there executive team look at the areas that make them the most money and divert their attention, focus and development to those areas? Cars, road bikes, garden equipment, generators, piano's you name it. The euro's don't have these distractions, there focus is in an area that is very small in the grand scheme of the planet (dirt bikes), it just happens to be important to us.
My 2c.
Maybe they don't care! Motocross is not big in Japan, not as big as it is in Europe/USA. They still make a good product, just not as good as there European counterpart.
Is it possible that this doesn't bother them? Maybe there executive team look at the areas that make them the most money and divert their attention, focus and development to those areas? Cars, road bikes, garden equipment, generators, piano's you name it. The euro's don't have these distractions, there focus is in an area that is very small in the grand scheme of the planet (dirt bikes), it just happens to be important to us.
My 2c.
The Shop
Selling dirt bikes is tiny slice of what the Japanese manufactures do, and don't contribute much to their annual profits. Their efforts are in cars, road bikes and heavy industries. Priorities, and dirt bikes are low on the list.
Pit Row
Pushing the envelope as KTM is able to do compared to Japan, and all the different models as you point out is obviously great and nice that they’re different.
Here’s some thoughts, and BTW you see the KTM vs. Japan bike threads on here ALL the time and they don’t go anywhere, so not interested in starting that. I firmly believe Japan got caught with its pants down with the 2015.5 KTM 450 FE and I don’t see it happening to that degree again. Japan has virtually caught up with examples from Honda and Yamaha, new KXF coming in ‘19. So IMHO they were lagging 2-3 years and they’ve caught up. I own KTM’s now and I’m very happy with them, but don’t believe they are blowing away the newest Japan bikes. The new CRF is really good, I’ve ridden one. Suspect the new Yamaha is also great. The chromoly steel frame has me sticking with KTM for now though.
This advantage will likely go unchecked until they start to use it where it hurts the Japanese manufacturers where it counts: streetbikes or cars.
Until then, the OP is right: they don't care. They sell enough MX bikes to justify the tooling for now, and that is enough. They use motocross as an opportunity to get younger buyers onto their brands and hope the experience will carry over to a new 600cc sportbike, then a 1000cc sportbike, then a sport tourer or cruiser, etc. KTM does not compete in those later categories very well. (Yet.)
IMHO in 2019 KTM will really feel the sting of Yamaha producing a competitive 65 and a new 85. Their years of price gouging the mini market might haunt them, especially when Japanese OEM parts are much more readily available and cheaper. Depending on how well Yamaha does, I see no reason why Kawasaki wouldn't reinvest in their mini model lineup as well
As mentioned a few times in this thread, KTM have a massive advantage compared to Honda/Kawasaki/Suzuki/Yamaha, their manufacturing R&D/production lines have a much smaller lineup of bikes to build, therefore they are capable of doing much more in a shorter time.
If, for example, Kawasaki was to stop producing most of their road bikes then you would probably see a Euro-like bike (in saying that some non-Euro bikes are getting a lot closer to Euros as evidenced in shootouts this year), as they could dedicate a lot more resources to it. Doing that of course would result in a lot of jobs lost, smaller profits (upsetting shareholders), smaller dealerships, etc etc etc ...the flow on effect would be major, but you would get a better dirt bike (potentially).
However, KTM (especially) are stating to produce a lot more road bikes, it is entirely feasible that it will get to a stage when they cannot design/test/build/etc their bikes at the pace they do now.
The margins on a dirt bike are no where near the margin on a road bike (likely why KTM are producing more road bikes), hence why non-Euro manufacturers focus more on the road bikes, thats their bread and butter profits.
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