Yamaha’s new world of personal mobility

Hiroyuki Yanagi drives home the message loud and clear. “We are not a motorcycle company but a mobility company,” says the President & CEO of Yamaha Motor Company.

The interview is taking place in a private room behind the company’s colourfully displayed hall at the recently held Tokyo Motor Show. On display were a host of new products including the sports ride concept car and the MWT-9 leaning multi-wheel concept. The design for the car, according to Yamaha, infuses the feeling of riding a motorcycle.

As in the Motiv which was showcased at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2013, the sports ride concept has been designed to express a driver-machine relationship which is typically experienced in motorcycle riding. The MWT-9, akin to the three-wheeled Tricity, allows easy riding on rough, uneven roads.

“From motorcycles and scooters to four-wheelers marks a growing world of personal mobility with the distinct Yamaha style,” says Yanagi during this exclusive interaction. The Japanese automaker began work on its new vision roadmap about 3-4 years ago. “This was the time we began thinking about the future and the growing world of personal mobility with the Yamaha touch,” he adds.

The three-wheeled Tricity motorcycle is already present in Thailand, Europe and Japan. It could even head out to other countries so long as it makes business sense for Yamaha. It is precisely for this reason that Yanagi is taking one thing at a time for future mobility initiatives.

For instance, it is not as if the sports car concept will debut anytime soon. “There are a lot of things to be worked on four-wheelers right from product and design to the business plan and investment requirements. We are progressing on this and this could become a reality within several years,” says Yanagi.

The keyword here is “several years” which taken literally means the commercial launch is not likely to happen before 2020. Yet, the direction is clear in that Yamaha will increasingly look at expanding its role as a mobility solutions provider.

There would be challenges to reckon with beyond just product development. On the retail and branding front, customers and dealers will need to understand the transition that Yamaha is taking and appreciate the new reality that it will no longer be confined to two-wheelers.

Yanagi does not seem particularly perturbed by this possibility. He speaks of the company’s marine business which is successful and has not remotely impacted its brand image in motorcycles or scooters. “We must make the personal mobility brand grow strategically. From a brand standpoint, we will not stick to one small domain but always look at new fields,” he says.

Back home in India, this is not an entirely unfamiliar script especially for Bajaj Auto which recently launched its Qute quadricycle in Turkey. As in the case of Yamaha, it believes the time has come to think of innovative mobility solutions in a landscape where customer preferences are changing rapidly. The Magic Iris from Tata Motors is another case in point. “We are about personal mobility,” repeats Yanagi for good measure. According to him, the challenge for Yamaha is to use its two-wheeler technology and make a four-wheeler.

“This will be a big difference from what carmakers do. There is flexibility of manufacturing, design and more lightweight overall. We are not competing with four-wheeler makers but are trying to create new categories,” he says.

Yet, there is a lot of hard work in store thanks in part to new regulations which will come in regarding noise, emissions and safety. “We need to work on several aspects of technology. We have had experience with automobile engines for long years and we know what a four-wheeler is,” declares Yanagi.

All this will, of course, take time before Yamaha can be an all-mobility solutions provider. Likewise, it will be difficult to have a common price for these options given the reality of lower disposable incomes in emerging countries. It is here that Yamaha will have its work cut out in offering the best pricing options for consumers across the world.