December 12th 2025: Despite their high-tech image motorcycles often lag years – sometimes decades – behind cars in key elements of technology for a variety of reasons, which means that even without a crystal ball we can often get a glimpse into what’s in store for the future of motorcycling simply by taking a glance at what’s hot on four wheels.
The delay between tech appearing on cars and making the leap to bikes stems from a host of reasons. Sometimes it’s a result of legislation, cars are a step or two ahead when it comes to emissions regulations, and cost is another key factor: the car market is far larger and cars themselves are more expensive than bikes, making it easier to absorb the expense of the latest technologies. On occasion it’s simply a reflection of the different attitudes of riders compared to car drivers, with motorcyclists often more averse to change, or a result of the added complexity of miniaturising components to fit into the cramped confines of a motorcycle. But the march of technology is relentless and, eventually, virtually every advance that appears on cars is adopted into bikes.
Take ABS, for example. It’s first ever appearance on a motorcycle was – surprisingly – as far back as the 1950s when the Dunlop Maxaret system developed for aircraft was fitted to a Royal Enfield Super Meteor for testing purposes (that very bike still exists as part of the Science Museum’s collection), but ABS didn’t reach mass production on two wheels with advent of Bosch’s ABS system, offered on the BMW K100 in 1988 a decade after it was first introduced in production cars as an option on the 1978 Mercedes S-Class (Jensen’s FF got there a decade earlier but used the Maxaret system and was made in tiny numbers: the Mercedes is more representative of today’s antilock brake systems). Despite ABS appearing on a variety of bikes since then, it was more than two decades later with the launch of Bosch’s ‘ABS 9’ system in 2009 that the tech really hit the mainstream. Today ABS is mandatory on bikes over 125cc and ever more advanced systems, including cornering antilock systems using inertial measurement units to measure lean angle, acceleration and yaw, mean it’s a must-have selling point.
A similar lag came with the introduction of fuel injection to bikes. Most cars moved to injection in the 80s and 90s, under pressure from tightening emission limits and encouraged by the ever-lower cost of electronic injection systems. But come the turn of the millennium, when barely any carburetted production cars remained on sale, injection was still a relative rarity on motorcycles. Even big, mainstream bikes like the Suzuki Bandit 1200 stuck with quad-carb setups long into the 00s despite early-adopters having introduced injection two decades earlier.
Why is the transition so slow? It can be down to demand – for example, there was resistance against ABS on bikes from many riders when it first appeared – whereas sometimes it’s due to specific motorcycle-related issues. Fuel injection, for example, was harder to implement on bikes than cars thanks to their free-revving character and the sensitivity of a hand throttle, which served to amplify any jerkiness that early FI systems suffered. More often than not, though, it’s down to cost or legislation, or a combination of the two. For a relatively small field like motorcycling it’s logical to let the huge R&D expense involved in a new tech sit on the broader shoulders of the wider automotive industry and then to adapt and adopt it once mass production brings prices down.
Take, for example the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that form the basis of modern bikes’ inertial measurement units. These tiny sensors-on-a-chip first appeared in the late 90s in car ESP systems and airbag triggers, later spreading to consumer tech like smartphones before finally making the leap to bikes. Today MEMS chips like accelerometers, gyroscopes and pressure sensors have become incredibly affordable – a six-axis IMU sensor incorporating gyros and accelerometers can be had for under £2 – and tiny, measuring just a couple of millimetres across. It’s a similar story with infotainment. Colour screens have been commonplace on cars for years and are now cheaper than conventional, analogue dials, so they’re rapidly spreading across motorcycles as well.
There’s also a question of acceptance. Automatic transmissions, for example, have been technically possible on bikes – for example, the CVTs used in scooters – for decades, but have failed to appeal to customers until recently. Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT) has helped break down that barrier, and now there’s a spate of much cheaper, simpler, single-clutch ‘automated manual’ options reaching the market from the likes of BMW, Yamaha, KTM and several of the upstart Chinese brands.
So, what trends currently seen in cars are likely to make the transition to bikes? There are several that look likely to get adopted into the mainstream in the coming decade, starting, perhaps, with smaller, forced-induction engines.
We’ve already seen cars ditch their V12s and V8s in favour of downsized six- and four-cylinder motors, invariably using forced induction – usually turbochargers – at increasingly impressive levels of boost to reach the same, or higher, performance levels as their bigger predecessors. Mercedes’ long-running range ‘63’ branded AMG machines are the perfect example. Originally using a 6.2-litre V8, they dropped to a twin-turbo 4.0 litre a decade ago, and then to a tiny 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder allied to a hybrid system.
Today there are indications of bikes taking the same route. Honda’s upcoming V3R E-Compressor promises 1200cc performance from a boosted, 900cc three-cylinder, while others are trying hybrid tech, with Kawasaki promising 700cc performance from its 451cc Ninja 7 Hybrid, and China’s Benda recently unveiling a production-targeted concept, the P51, with a 250cc twin paired to a hybrid motor for a combined 68hp. Yamaha, too, is following the hybrid route, testing a battery-assisted version of it MT-09 as a plug-in hybrid with better performance and efficiency than a larger combustion engine could achieve.
With all-out electrification of motorcycles still struggling to get traction among customers, and no immediate solution to the range and performance deficits of electric bikes that stem from the relatively poor energy density of even the best modern batteries, it’s likely that future machines will retain combustion engines but be forced increasingly towards downsizing by tightening emissions limits in years to come, with forced induction and hybridisation among the routes to maintain or improve performance at the same time. At the same time, an increased focus on aerodynamics is inevitable because reduced drag offers something for nothing: a measurable performance gain, reduced fuel consumption and better emissions, all without a downside. It’s an area where, at the moment, bikes lag far behind their four-wheeled counterparts and a field that promises rich pickings for advances in the future.
Other car-related tech heading to future bikes includes ADAS. With a growing number of two-wheelers already adopting radar-assisted adaptive cruise control and brake assist, it’s only a small step to add cameras for road sign recognition and to monitor lane markings. Alongside developments in self-steering, self-balancing bikes – Honda, Yamaha and BMW have all demonstrated such prototypes – it’s clear that semi-autonomous functions for motorcycles are on the horizon. Not every rider’s dream, perhaps, but the ability to let the bike take the strain on long motorway runs could be appealing in the right circumstances, and more importantly the same tech promises advances in accident-avoidance systems that can assist in emergencies. Honda is explicitly targeting zero fatalities involving its cars and bikes globally by 2050, a deadline that’s now only three or four model-cycles away and one that demands radical advances in crash-prevention technology.
One thing is certain, though. The bikes of the future are going to be better, faster, more capable than their predecessors, regardless of rules intended to cut emissions or boost safety: it’s going to be an interesting time.
