Since 1999, with the birth of Euro1, regulations on vehicle restrictions began to be implemented to regulate their impact on the environment.
Since then, these regulations have been progressively tightened, preventing potentially more polluting vehicles from slowing down their production or adapting to the new restrictions. Over the course of this decade, a total of six evolutions of this regulation have been introduced. Currently, in the automotive industry, vehicles must comply with the Euro6 standard, with the exception of motorcycles, which have the approval to be under the umbrella of the regulations dictated by Euro4.
EURO5 standard on motorcycles
The Euro5 regulation should have been applied to new motorcycles since the beginning of this year 2020, with the prohibition of launching new models that did not exceed the new emission restrictions, making it impossible to register any motorcycle that was not adapted to these changes, but the pressure from manufacturers to the European authorities resulted in a moratorium that ends up expiring on December 31, 2020.
The latest news is that the European Parliament has voted in favour of allowing motorcycle manufacturers and dealers to continue marketing throughout 2021 the units in stock from 2020 homologated as Euro4, frames that would otherwise have had to be withdrawn or destroyed.
"In short, Euro5 will continue with its established plans this year, but it will be allowed that in 2021 those Euro4 motorcycles that have remained in stock can continue to be sold and registered."
This regulation does not apply only to trial bikes, but to all motorcycles. This fact implies that every motorcycle manufactured in 2020 must be registered within the year 2020 itself, otherwise it can never be registered, because it will not comply with the regulations in force in 2021, which will be Euro5.
Exceptionally, Dealers can produce what is called an “end-of-series list”, where all the frames of the motorcycles manufactured, but not sold, are sent to the brand, and in turn to industry, so that this period is longer and they can end up being registered during the year 2021.
For example, a motorcycle purchased in August 2020, but never registered, unless the dealer is notified to include it in this “final series listing”, can never be registered, since the regulations under which it was manufactured are obsolete with respect to the current requirements.
TRIAL BIKES AND THE EURO5 STANDARD
A priori, the Euro5 regulations are too complex for a trial bike, whether 2-stroke or 4-stroke, to be able to comply with them today. Emission limits for nitrous oxides, airborne particulate matter and acoustic impact are included here.
The next step will be to see how trial brands resolve compliance with this homologation regulation. At the moment, the only trial brand that we are aware of that complies with Euro5 is the electric motorcycle manufacturer Electric Motion.
As soon as we have more information about this news, we will let you know by updating this report.
