Not Jumping Into the Adventure Scooter Market
The Honda X-ADV is coming to the U.S. and that bike could usher in a whole new era of scooters. It’s proved quite popular in Europe and other areas of the world. However, Yamaha said in an interview with Motociclismo that it has no plans of building a TMAX adventure scooter.
“We know our customers well, we know what they want,” said Paolo Pavesio, Yamaha Motor Europe Marketing and Motorsport Division Manager (translation by Google Translate). The 2017 TMAX had probably lost a bit of sportiness, especially from the design point of view, and with the 2020 version, it found it again. The new engine and the work done on the suspension also go in that direction.”
He went on to call Honda’s X-ADV a smart move but said that he sees the TMAX as a different product. Pavesio did acknowledge the fact that the X-ADV will likely pull some buyers away from the TMAX, but he didn’t seem too worried about the impact the scooter would have on Yamaha’s sales overall. He was confident the TMAX is the product that many riders want.
It will be interesting to see how the X-ADV does in the coming years. If Honda continues to see success as it has in Europe, and it manages to see some measure of success in North America, I could see Yamaha rethinking its strategy for the TMAX, or it may come up with a new scooter altogether.