Hip business idea: Electric motorcycles – now going bankrupt

Published 20 October 2024 at 13.45

Economy. The new electric motorcycle industry continues to flounder. Now Italian Energica joins the ranks of bankrupt companies in the sector.

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Despite a high-profile investment from the global automotive giant Ideanomics just over two years ago, it is now announced that Energica is going bankrupt.

Energica was founded in 2010 and has since been a well-known name in the industry. The company's future prospects looked promising when Ideanomics bought the company in 2022 with the hope of strengthening its market position. But everything turned upside down when the air went out of the electric bubble in 2022 and the company's bankruptcy trustee will now auction off the company's assets.

The bankruptcy comes shortly after Swedish Cake, which manufactures electric motocross bikes, met the same fate earlier in year, despite large efforts and investments from Swedish pension funds.

Unlike in Asia, where electric two-wheelers such as scooters meet strong demand due to a strong actual need for simple, cheap means of transport, sales in Europe and The US has been weak.

Asia's market for electric two-wheelers is growing rapidly and this is a problem for start-up Western electric vehicle manufacturers who have difficulty adapting their products to the Asian market.

The question now being raised is whether more electric motorcycle manufacturers will be forced to follow the same path as Cake and Energica, or whether the market can reverse the trend in the future.