Ducati closes 2021, a difficult year for the mechanical industry, with a historic record, and a newfound thrust on two fronts: the electric motorcycle and the competition with the big brands, first of all Honda.
The Borgo Panigale house closed 2021 with a record sales, growing globally by 24% over 2020 (concluded at 48,042 pieces produced and sold) and by 12% in relation to the pre-year 2019, when the units were 53,183 . In fact, with almost 60,000 (59,447, to be precise) motorcycles sold all over the world, 2021 has become the best year ever for the brand of the German group Vw Audi, which nevertheless is (and remains) strongly rooted in Italy.
This took place in a difficult, but not dramatic, year, because the chip shortage, the commodity crisis and the pandemic have weighed but the two-wheeler sector, not subject to forced energy conversions, has had a strong growth in 2021. in terms of volumes, showing a behavior diametrically opposite to that of the automotive sector with a market that, in Italy, for example, recorded an increase of 21.2% in the year just ended and a growth of 14.5 % on 2019, while car registrations, it should be remembered, marked a dip of -23.9% on 2019 and a modest rise + 5.5% on 2020.
«2021 – declares Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali – was a magical year: we delivered over 59 thousand motorcycles, a number never reached in the company’s 95-year history, and we won the title of constructors’ world champion for the second consecutive year. MotoGP and we started the electric era with the V21D prototype, which anticipates the bike that will race in the MotoE championship from 2023 ».
And on this point, that of the lithium-ion motorcycle opens an interesting chapter that perhaps will make the hard and pure Ducati fans turn up their noses but the energy and industrial transformation, also for the Borgo Panigale house, remains ineluctable and soon there will be on roads on a zero-emission two-wheeler with the Italian brand. “We have started the electric era of our company – continues Claudio Domenicali – and we have developed the V21D prototype, which anticipates the bike that will race in the MotoE championship from 2023”.