The markets for motorcycles in Asia are far different from the ones in America or Europe, be it in terms of demand, product availability, consumer choice or supply. This automatically results in a particular firm that belongs to one faction and decides to move to the other, having to adjust a great deal before actually succeeding in that market. An excellent example for the same would be Italian firm Ducati, which is owned by Volkswagen Group’s Audi. This firm launched the Ducati Panigale in Japan sometime back, expecting it to perform as well as it did in other markets.
However, it is know that for Japanese people, utility and technology comes above anything else and style in particularly, something for which Italian firms are known across the globe. Now, a report by MCN claims that Ducati, after realizing that Panigale needs to be altered according to Japanese market demand structure, will be looking to make changes to the model.
Sources claim that experts in Japan felt that the bike was too extravagant in looks for it to work in Japan. The changes expected made in the Ducati Panigale are adding an exhaust and restructuring the ECU to make the bike viable for the Japanese market. Some experts albeit are not really happy with this kind of change brought about in this model, saying that it potentially destroys an amazingly beautiful looking bike.
A long tail pipe was added to bike and in effect, totally changed the character of the bike along with increasing the weight by 3.5 kg, which caused the Ducati Panigale to produce a maximum power of 133 BHP, less than its actually top capacity. Ducati, according to reports, has finally found a new exhaust that will replace the old one in this pipe and improve the overall functioning of the bike by letting go off the twin-stacked exhaust system.
