World Motorcycle Test Cycle

These standards have emanated from within the EU under the auspices of the UNECE but their use worldwide is neither obligatory nor can they be enforced. However, in order to sell motorcycles within a regulated market, such as the European Union for example, manufacturers must meet WMTC emission standards which means effectively they must also adopt these test cycles.

• after 2017: all European manufacturers are obliged to use WMTC[4][6]
• Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam adopted prior to 2016[7]
• July 2014: India harmonised its testing cycle with the WMTC effective from 2016/2017[8]
• July 2013: Japan's four domestic motorcycle manufacturers - Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki & Yamaha - began using WMTC data in their literature.[9]
• since 2006: in the USA, WMTC is accepted as an optional regime to the local FTP[10][11]

• the initial standard referenced existing regulations in Europe (NEDC), Japan, and the USA. However India objected that these standards did not represent typical driving conditions in that market being significantly different for the huge population of 2 and 3-wheel vehicles in use in India. Consequently a revised standard included input from the Indian Driving Cycle (IDC) as well.[12] Nonetheless, while the WMTC is recognised as the best attempt so far, it is only a model of real-world driving and quite a difficult one to replicate by an ordinary rider.[4]
• the WMTC standards do not include any test or reference for durability requirements (i.e. the behaviour of a motorcycle after type-approval has been granted) such as those applied in Taiwan (15,000 km), India (30,000 km) and USA (30,000 km).[11][12] Studies perceived such tests to be problematic for a variety of reasons despite their growing importance.[12][13] Future, possibly as early as 2017, revisions of WMTC are expected to include Durability Requirements[14]
• some manufacturers have been critical of the generalisation from the measured driving-cycle consumption to an mpg statistic i.e. the algorithm used to compute an mpg value from measurements[4]
• the system remains open to abuse as with cycle beating where on-board-computers dynamically adjusted performance when test driving cycles were detected
• manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to produce high-performance machines which can pass emission controls due in large part to the nature of such engines
• emissions control generally has virtually halted the production of 2-stroke engines in favour of 4-stroke engines across all classes of motorcycle[12]