Electric future - Yamaha motor is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050

Yamaha Motor announces its future goals with new forms of mobility in mind, aiming to achieve carbon net neutrality by 2050

Electric news and eco-friendly environmental plans seem to be in plentiful supply at the minute - no doubt influenced by the EU and UK plans for the total ban of petrol motorcycle engine sales by 2035. The latest manufacturer to get involved is Yamaha Motor, which has just revealed its latest ‘Environmental Plan’ targets.

After reviewing the plan that was originally formulated in 2018, the Japanese manufacturer now hopes to achieve complete carbon neutrality across all of its business practices by 2050.

This will include emissions across the life cycles of all of its products. On the way to a carbon-neutral 2050, targets are now in place for reductions of emissions in 2030 and 2035, which is coincidentally (or very much by design) the same key dates for the EU and UK carbon neutral ‘checkpoints’.

As a signal of intent, the report states that the aim is to reduce CO2 emitted per person during movement, by promoting the use of personal mobility with low CO2 emissions and power-efficient sources.

To achieve a net neutral state, carbon offset methods will also be employed, in addition to optimising business practices with a small environmental footprint, optimising raw material procurement, manufacturing, use and disposal.

Does this mean new, cleaner Yamaha motorcycles are on the way?

The short answer is yes. In the release, the Japanese factory specifically states that it will be ‘proposing new forms of mobility unique to Yamaha Motor in addition to its signature motorcycles’.

Although we’re holding out for some sort of lightning fast electric R1, chances are we're going to see bikes, scooters and LMW that have been shown in concept form already.

As we have seen in the news this past year, a deal was penned with other manufacturers for swappable batteries within the electric consortium, plus they built a 475bhp electric power plant and filed trademarks for the E01 and EC-05 electric scooters.