I’ve been thinking recently about the increasing amount of automation in motorcycle engines and transmissions.
Automatic transmissions have long been standard on scooters, which mostly use belt-driven continuously variable transmissions (CVTs). While CVTs are a great solution for low power, low torque scooter engines, they’re not best suited for the larger capacity engines found in motorcycles. The belt drive system can only cope with limited torque before it starts to slip, and power delivery tends to be delayed. With many motorcycles now equipped with engines with power outputs similar to those of a small hatchback, one can imagine the issues one might face if one attempted to put 150hp through a slim rubber belt.
The motorcycle manufacturer that has dominated this area is Honda, which began introducing reliable “automatic” transmissions around the time I first got my road license. Honda’s dual-clutch transmission (DCT) for motorcycles debuted on the VFR1200F in 2010, more than 15 years ago. I recall all the articles published in the British motorcycle press that included photos of the left handlebar grip and the absence of a clutch lever.
The DCT is a manual gearbox with automatic clutch operation, in which two electronically controlled hydraulic clutches handle the odd and even gears. The technology reached a wider audience with the DCT version of the 2016 CRF1000L Africa Twin – a version of which I now own, albeit in the non-DCT variant. A second wave began in 2024, when BMW introduced its optional Automated Shift Assistant (ASA) on the new 1300 models, controlling both clutch and gear changes on the standard gearbox. Yamaha launched its Y-AMT on the MT-09 the same year, and Honda launched its E-Clutch on the CB650R and CBR650R. All of these retain near-standard sequential motorcycle gearboxes. BMW’s and Yamaha’s systems add computer-controlled actuators to both the clutch and the shift mechanism, allowing either fully automatic operation or electronic gear selection by the rider; Honda’s E-Clutch automates only the clutch, and the rider still changes gear with the foot pedal. That option to select gears manually turns out to matter for trust, which I return to below.
The benefits are fairly straightforward: smoother, faster gearshifts mean smoother power delivery and faster acceleration. Some accommodations need to be made when one can’t manually select a gear. The parking brake fitted to DCT Hondas is one example; another is the manual shift buttons that can override the gear selection determined by the bike’s computer.
Riders list a number of benefits to the system. Slow speed riding apparently becomes a lot easier when one isn’t trying to slip the clutch while simultaneously maintaining sufficient engine speed to ensure the bike doesn’t stall. A rider can put the bike in Drive and control the throttle. Africa Twin owners have observed that this functionality is incredibly useful in rough or muddy terrain.
Critically, Honda saw it as important to retain the option for a rider to manually shift, as an override that can be used when the rider decides that the automation doesn’t suit their needs or the riding conditions. In those conditions the rider is in a supervisory position, intervening with control inputs only when they judge it necessary, rather than making the conventional, continuous clutch lever and shifter movements required to move a non-DCT motorcycle through its gears. Riders are essentially passive until they decide to become temporarily active with the controls, and revert to that observational state thereafter.
Bainbridge (1983) explored the notion that an operator of an automated system exists in a position of supervision as much as observation. Using the context of industrial process control, Bainbridge investigated the capacity of an operator observing a problem to “take over and stabilize the process”, noting that the ability “to diagnose the fault as a basis for shut down or recovery requires cognitive skills” (Bainbridge, 1983, p. 775). Bainbridge draws on Mackworth’s “vigilance” studies (Mackworth, 1950, cited in Bainbridge, 1983) to show that even a highly motivated person cannot keep effective visual attention on a source of information where very little happens for more than about half an hour, so monitoring for rare faults has to be handed to an automatic alarm system that re-engages the operator’s attention. The tendency of an operator to disengage from the act of observation when they feel confident in the automated system requires a second order of intervention to alert the individual in the position of observer to a fault, with the “more serious irony… that the automatic control system has been put in because it can do the job better than the operator, but yet the operator is being asked to monitor that it is working effectively” (Bainbridge, 1983, p. 776).
On a motorcycle, the equivalent is the TFT screen, an object which is continually increasing in size as new models are released, and having the capacity to display ever more complex data about function and automated responses. Car drivers will likely be familiar with the format: flashing icons, red hazard messages, even haptic feedback in the steering wheel for lane assist systems that alert drivers when the car is drifting away from its central position in a lane. It’s a developing field, with Ford applying for some very interesting patents, including one for a shifter that uses actuators and haptic feedback to mimic a stick-shift gear change in electric vehicles (Ford, 2025).
Such systems move the operator from a position of active control to one of passive observation and reaction, and the technology is divisive among motorcyclists. It is for good reason that Honda offers a standard manual transmission option alongside the DCT option, and one can find just as many positive reviews for each variant online, should one care to spend the time.
The parallels with industrial automation are many: the repetitive, unconsciously performed task (pulling in a clutch lever with the left hand, shifting gear with the left foot, then releasing the clutch lever to engage the gear) is all eliminated through automation, various efficiencies are gained, and functional benefits are introduced into the broader system. To return briefly to the terminology of scooters, the phrase in that world is “twist and go”, and it’s hard to see the disadvantages.
Lee and See (2004) explored the idea of trusting automated systems, and how they might be designed to encourage trust and reliance. It is this observation I find most interesting in the context of human interactions with control systems on motorcycles:
Trust, a social psychological concept, seems particularly important for understanding human-automation partnerships. Trust can be defined as the attitude that an agent will help achieve an individual’s goals in a situation characterized by uncertainty and vulnerability. In this definition, an agent can be automation or another person that actively interacts with the environment on behalf of the person. (Lee and See, 2004, p. 51)
Addressing vulnerability of the rider is the motivation for much of the automation in motorcycle control systems: traction control, wheelie control, anti-lock braking systems, electronic dampers in suspension, active variable cruise control, tire pressure monitoring systems; the list seems to continually grow. One might even include the control of secondary comfort systems such as heated grips or adjustable screens, CarPlay and Android Auto into this discussion, as examples of systems that provide mental and physical comfort to the rider. Research in this specific field is scant, but I have found such systems have the capacity to reduce stress and fatigue, and make me feel as though I am a safer rider.
I might not want to test the traction control or ABS brakes, but I can trust that the system will perform when needed. I don’t strictly need an adjustable screen or heated grips, but both can mitigate discomfort on longer rides that might otherwise reduce focus and, in turn, hazard awareness. I trust the machine’s combination of electronic systems will enhance my safety and comfort. I’ve written elsewhere, most recently in The Trusted Object, about the hybrid entity formed when a rider combines with a motorcycle, and the cultural form that takes. In this context, the hybridization requires the human to have unequivocal trust in the mechanical entity; the risks are elevated compared to other means of transportation, and the consequences of failure in either those components or the rider’s perception are likely to be significant. No one enjoys crashing, after all.
“Trust in automation guides reliance when the complexity of the automation makes a complete understanding impractical and when the situation demands adaptive behavior that procedures cannot guide” (Lee and See, 2004, p. 52). I may not fully understand how ABS or traction control works, and I’m certainly not capable of understanding how it is reacting in real time, all I care about is whether it can keep me alive.
Notwithstanding the clear benefits of automation in preserving life in high-risk leisure activities such as motorcycling, there is also a cultural benefit, separate from safety: riders are becoming accustomed to a motorcycle that feels and responds differently, and the manufacturers aren’t publicizing it.
More than 15 years of progress in the development of automated systems on motorcycles has acclimated riders to a visceral change in the way motorcycles feel when they are ridden, and how they react to rider inputs. One can make a credible argument that a smoother, faster motorcycle that requires less physical input from a rider to change its state of propulsion is a safer motorcycle. Naturally, that comes with all the prior caveats about automation and disengagement, but with every motion comes an expense of energy and an incremental accumulation of fatigue. Eliminating the gear shift changes the way the individual reacts with the other components of the hybridized entity. It fundamentally changes the riding experience. Twist and go. It simplifies the control of the machine into four basic functions: go, stop, left and right. Notably, in fully automatic mode it removes the clutch lever under the left hand and the gear lever under the left foot, leaving the throttle on the right as the only control of propulsion – the dominant side for the majority of individuals, but a potential limitation for left-handed riders.
There’s also a consequence in accessibility. Shifting gear requires more interaction of a rider with the machine than any automatic transmission. Acquiring and developing the motor skills to use a clutch lever with one’s hand and operate a shift lever with one’s foot requires time and commitment. What eventually becomes a largely unconscious action for experienced riders starts out as a consciously considered act requiring thought and physical coordination that new riders find hard to master. We’ve all missed a gear, or felt the embarrassment of a stalled engine when the lights turn green. And while it’s worse at the outset, it’s a risk that never goes away. I stalled my Honda two weeks ago.
Honda and BMW seem to recognize that manual shifting, particularly in the US market, where automatic transmissions are the norm in automobile applications, is a barrier to entry. You make motorcycles more accessible and appealing by making them easier – and safer – to ride. In a market where the median age of US motorcycle owners was 50 in the Motorcycle Industry Council’s (2018) owner survey, anything that eliminates the barriers to entry of new consumer groups is to be welcomed, and the survival of many motorcycle manufacturers will rely on this approach.
There is, however, a longer-term gain: riders who learn to trust automated shifting are being prepared for a motorcycle with no gears at all. Once the gear shift is eliminated from motorcycling, the way the motorcycle feels changes. Small accommodations, such as the manual override shift buttons on Hondas, seem to me to exist partly to reassure hesitant consumers – they might not initially trust the automation, but the buttons allow them an acclimation space in which they can gradually begin to “rely on automation they trust”, while also helping “to overcome the cognitive complexity people face in managing increasingly sophisticated automation” (Lee and See, 2004, p. 51).
And when will the manufacturers need riders to trust a shiftless motorcycle? When the drivetrain becomes electric.
When you’re talking about implementing a fundamental change in power delivery on a means of individual transportation with 100 years of heritage, it’s sensible to approach this transition in a cautious and considered way. Lee and See (2004, p. 54) describe this process as trust evolution; the match between the trust of the user and the capability of the system they call calibration. They chart automation capability (i.e. trustworthiness, the functional capacity) against the trust of the user (Lee and See, 2004, p. 55). Designers aim to synchronize capability with trust, and thus to avoid distrust – where trust falls short of system capabilities, resulting in disuse.
Trust does not develop in a vacuum but, instead, evolves in a complex individual, cultural, and organizational context. The individual context includes individual differences such as the propensity to trust. These differences influence the initial level of trust and influence how new information is interpreted. The individual context also includes a person’s specific history of interactions that have led to a particular level of trust. (Lee and See, 2004, p. 56)
In summary: manufacturers shouldn’t think they can roll out an entirely new drivetrain format and just expect consumers to adopt it. The transitional phase requires a thoughtful, methodical approach to shift (pun intended) from one means of propulsion to another. Quietly, Honda seems to have been doing this in the background for more than 15 years.
Once riders believe that they can trust the automated safety and power delivery systems to provide a satisfactory riding experience, any prior gaps between perceptions of propulsion methods narrow significantly. The jump from a smooth-shifting DCT-equipped 1100cc internal combustion engine with predictable and even power delivery to an electric motor programmed to deliver power and torque in ways that mimic the ICE engine is a short one. I wrote in an earlier piece about the challenges the motorcycle industry faces in creating products that have range sufficient for US consumers to be persuaded of the effectiveness of e-motorcycles for the longer journeys riders take in this country – and why such machines remain out of financial reach in the short to medium term. I expect the EU and Asian markets will see considerably greater uptake of electric propulsion, especially in dense, urban environments where journeys are short and charging opportunities are plentiful.
The challenge for the manufacturers looking to sell electric products in the US market will differ significantly from Asia. The US is a market in which motorcycles are leisure products rather than functional, economic transportation. As such, the challenge the large manufacturers will face during the upcoming decade of propulsion transition will be how to recreate the character of the various ICE engine configurations, such as a single cylinder “thumper” or the 270-degree crank twin-cylinder engines that are currently so popular in mid-range and large ADV bikes. Read any recent review article or watch any YouTube video and I guarantee that the engine configuration will be mentioned within the first few lines or the first 30 seconds of footage. Engine character is deeply embedded in the culture, and a significant component of how buying decisions are reached on the dealerships. That in itself is its own challenge; in a future piece I’ll explore how I think manufacturers will have to approach those configuration challenges when the motor itself can deliver almost any power output a manufacturer chooses, at the cost of battery depletion and range, and character becomes a programming decision.
Ride safe.
Tim
References
Bainbridge, L. (1983) ‘Ironies of automation’, Automatica, 19(6), pp. 775–779.
Ford (2025) Shifter assembly for electric vehicle. US Patent Application 2025/0092947. Filed 15 September 2023; published 20 March 2025.
Lee, J.D. and See, K.A. (2004) ‘Trust in automation: designing for appropriate reliance’, Human Factors, 46(1), pp. 50–80. doi:10.1518/hfes.46.1.50.30392.
Motorcycle Industry Council (2018) 2018 Motorcycle/ATV Owner Survey. Irvine, CA: Motorcycle Industry Council.