Bikes aren’t simply altering form, they’re altering substance. Beneath the plastics and paint, Honda has begun a quiet however significant shift in what its bikes are comprised of. It’s not an idea, a prototype, or a greenwashing press launch, because it’s already in manufacturing throughout six present fashions. It may sign a brand new period: a bike constructed not only for efficiency, consolation or potential, but in addition for circularity.
The Supplies Revolution – Past the Bike
The Honda vary of bikes utilizing Durabio
Honda’s sustainability technique isn’t simply pinned to electrification. The corporate’s wider “triple motion to zero” strategy goals for carbon neutrality, clear vitality and full useful resource circulation by 2050. Manufacturing, logistics, gas, and – crucially – the supplies themselves are all beneath scrutiny.
That final level has triggered a serious push into bio-based engineering plastics and recycled supplies, now normal gear on a number of bikes in Honda’s European vary.
Main the cost is Durabio, a bio-based plastic derived from inedible corn and wheat. Developed by Mitsubishi Chemical Group, it replaces petroleum-based plastics utilizing a course of that extracts pure starches, converts them into glucose, and refines them into isosorbide – a chemical compound with a variety of engineering makes use of.
Honda CB1000F in gray
From Honda’s aspect, this hasn’t been a sudden leap. The corporate started exploring the appliance of Durabio in its motorbike division round 2020, making Honda the primary motorbike producer on the earth to undertake the fabric in sequence manufacturing.
Durabio is especially well-suited to motorbike use due to its excessive optical readability, which in flip permits color and gloss with out the necessity for paint – the half is colored throughout manufacturing. It additionally boasts glorious scratch resistance for uncovered elements and robust UV and impression sturdiness, boosting its suitability for journey and touring bikes. Put merely, it’s sturdy in each sense, however extra importantly, on this context, it permits Honda to complete bodywork and not using a paint store. That alone removes a whole emissions-heavy manufacturing stage from the method of constructing a motorcycle.
From Africa Twin to CB1000GT
The Honda Africa Twin function Durabio physique panels
The primary real-world software got here in March 2024 on the CRF1100L Africa Twin, which launched with the world’s first motorbike windscreen comprised of bio-based Durabio. The X-ADV adopted quickly after, utilizing it on each the windscreen and skirt cowl, and the Forza 750 adopted it for its handlebar central cowl and entrance aspect cowl.
Durabio has steadily unfold throughout Honda’s motorbike vary. After debuting on the Africa Twin, it appeared on the X-ADV’s skirt cowl and windscreen, then the Forza 750’s handlebar cowl and entrance cowl. The NT1100 gained a redesigned entrance fairing utilizing the fabric for 25YM, whereas the NC750X turned the primary mannequin to function colored Durabio bodywork. Most just lately, the 26YM CB1000GT joined the lineup with a Durabio windscreen, marking the newest step in its increasing use. So sure, it’s not simply restricted to idea bikes – it’s already on the showroom flooring.
LED lights function from the entrance to the again
You might have observed a sample there. Many of the bikes utilizing Durabio are ADV or touring-oriented, and that’s no accident. Excessive-performance sports activities fashions just like the Fireblade demand very completely different materials properties from their exterior physique panels, and Durabio merely doesn’t meet these particular necessities. In different phrases, this isn’t about advertising and marketing choice, however engineering suitability.
There’s additionally a price dialog occurring behind the scenes. At a uncooked materials degree, Durabio is dearer than standard petroleum-based plastics. Honda’s strategy has been to offset that by optimising half design and element building, working to minimise the associated fee drawback on the completed element degree quite than treating the fabric in isolation.
Durabio isn’t the one experiment. Honda’s SH125i and SH150i Vetro scooters use semi-transparent unpainted fairing panels, slicing CO2 output by 9.5 per cent over normal manufacturing at Honda’s Atessa plant.
Recycling has additionally stepped up at Honda
The Honda CB1000GT – driving
Recycled vehicle bumpers, as soon as thought-about unsuitable for bikes, at the moment are used on the baggage field of the NC750X and X-ADV, and the seat base of the Forza 750. Beforehand, each virgin and recycled automotive bumper supplies had materials properties that didn’t align with motorbike element necessities. The breakthrough got here by means of cautious management of these properties, mixed with redesigned element geometry that allowed the fabric to work as supposed.
2025 Honda Forza 750 – driving
Pre-consumer recycled polypropylene (PP) – primarily clear manufacturing scrap – additionally performs a rising position. With bodily properties that match new plastic and no contamination threat, it’s now used extensively on the X-ADV, Forza 750 and 26YM CB1000F, every that includes greater than 15 elements comprised of this recycled supply. To assist that shift, Honda has even constructed fully new provide chains devoted to processing and reintroducing the fabric.
And it doesn’t cease at plastics. Some aluminium and metal elements throughout Honda’s motorbike vary are already manufactured utilizing recycled supplies, quietly broadening the scope of this round strategy.
From linear to round use
Honda Journey Roads program introduced for Iceland 2021
Honda calls this transition a transfer away from a “take-make-dispose” mannequin and in direction of a round worth chain, constructed round 5 ideas:
- Enterprise Innovation – built-in recycling techniques from day one
- Superior Recycling – funding in scalable materials restoration
- Information Traceability – digital CO2 monitoring all through the lifecycle
- Round Design – disassembly-friendly building
- Round Worth Chain – industry-wide provide collaboration
It’s a response to a easy downside: round 90 per cent of uncooked materials in new autos nonetheless comes from contemporary mining, and that gained’t be sustainable endlessly. It additionally ties straight into Honda’s long-standing mantra that the “pleasure and freedom of mobility” should stay viable within the many years forward – a future the place virgin uncooked supplies could also be more durable, and dearer, to acquire.
There are limits, after all. Even with Durabio, Honda doesn’t design motorbike elements to be repaired through plastic welding or comparable strategies – and that’s true of standard supplies too. The main focus right here isn’t on repairability on the panel degree, however on decreasing impression on the level of creation.
The result’s that the bikes arriving in showrooms now aren’t simply evolutions of earlier fashions, however early steps in direction of a round future. One the place fairings don’t come from oil, seats are comprised of automobile bumpers, and paint is changed by bio-polymers derived from corn.
We might not but be driving absolutely recycled bikes, however it more and more looks like that’s the route of journey.
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