Scooters are becoming a trend: Piaggio is riding the corona wave

Scooters are becoming a trend
Piaggio rides the corona wave

Scooters are becoming increasingly popular. Piaggio in particular benefits from this. Last year, the traditional Italian brand proved to be the approval winner.

The motorbike boom in the Corona year 2020 brought many new customers, especially for the Italian manufacturer Piaggio in Germany. While around 18,900 brand new scooters were registered in 2019, a year later there were more than 30,800, according to current figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority. For the first time, the manufacturer of the cult scooter Vespa was more popular than any other brand in the motorcycle segment.

In previous years, BMW had always been the front runner. Almost 27,800 motorcycles were newly registered by the manufacturer in 2020; in 2019 there were almost 26,200. It is closely followed by the Austrian brand KTM, of which almost 26,500 new motorcycles were registered last year (2019: 19,777). The chairman of the Federal Association of Motorcyclists, Michael Lenzen, explains the trend that the light motorcycles, which are often operated with automatic transmission, are a good choice in cities with heavy traffic. "In the countryside, a moped or scooter is the only alternative for young people to be mobile in view of the often limited availability of public transport." They have also become more and more similar to motorcycles in terms of their performance and driving style.

The Motorcycle Industry Association (IVM) also sees advantages in scooters. They turned out to be "a very practical mobility solution for commuting to work as well as for shopping – with a virtually built-in parking guarantee," as spokesman Achim Marten said.

New driver's license option

A total of almost 222,000 new motorcycles were registered by the responsible authorities in 2020 – an increase of almost 32 percent compared to the previous year. According to the experts, the reason for this is, on the one hand, the pandemic. "Motorcycling was one of the few things that could still be done under the corona protection conditions," said Lenzen. According to the experts, many people also shied away from buses and trains and instead switched to scooters or motorcycles. In addition, new driving license regulations were enacted at the end of 2019, so that more experienced drivers can now drive machines with a displacement of up to 125 cubic centimeters and 15 hp without an additional driving test. According to the IVM, around 50,000 people made use of this option in 2020. "The exorbitant increase in the number of registrations in the 125 cubic centimeter class is due in particular to this mobility offer," said Marten.

Lenzen initially expects more accidents on Germany's roads because of the motorcycle boom. "We hope, however, that the trend of falling accident numbers for motorcycles will continue overall despite the increasing number of registrations." He recommends that newcomers and re-entrants complete safety training. The associations assume that the scooter trend will continue this year.

. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) BMW Motorrad (t) Motorcycles (t) KTM (t) Driver's license (t) Corona crisis