BMW bike big boss lifts the lid on Superbike glory, global rivalry, and the relentless pursuit of engineering dominance over mere marketing
Markus Flasch, 44, has been CEO of BMW Motorrad since November 2023. The Austrian-born engineer joined BMW in 2015, and in 2018 became CEO of its high-performance M Division. Under his leadership, this rose to become the world’s leading supplier of high-performance road cars and duly merged with BMW Motorsport in April 2021, thus integrating racing and series production development for the German manufacturer. Most recently, Flasch was responsible for the concept and development of all BMW brand vehicles in the mid and luxury classes, as well as the Rolls-Royce division.
No doubt partly as a reward for the successful creation of BMW M Motorsport, Flasch, a passionate motorcyclist, was appointed to head up BMW’s two-wheeled division in succession to the retiring Markus Schramm. In his first full year at the helm, BMW Motorrad set a new sales record, with 210,385 motorcycles and scooters delivered to customers in the company’s centenary year, albeit a small increase of just 0.6 per cent compared to 2023. But perhaps even more satisfying was the company’s long-awaited capture of the Superbike World Championship Riders title, with Toprak Razgatlioglu a convincing winner with 18 race victories on his BMW M 1000 RR, despite missing several races mid-season owing to injuries received when he aquaplaned off the track at Magny-Cours. It was BMW’s first ever world title win since it entered Superbike racing with the then-new S 1000 RR in 2009.
The chance to quiz Flasch about his future strategies for BMW Motorrad came on a visit to his office in Munich the week after he’d ridden Toprak’s superbike carrying the No.1 plate. He was still buzzing about the experience – and to cement his self-evident passion for two-wheeled as well as four-wheeled motorsport, next to his desk sat the 990cc BMW MotoGP prototype built in Italy by Oral Engineering, as tested by Luca Cadalora in 2006. This engine essentially comprised three cylinders off a BMW Formula 1 car engine. It never raced – but might things be different in the future?
Markus, BMW Motorrad set new sales records in 2024 in its first year under your direction, which strengthened your position as the world’s No.1 luxury motorcycle brand. BMW also won the Superbike World Championship after 15 years of trying. Were you satisfied with this, or had you hoped for even more?!
We’re very proud that we finally got the championship title. It’s been an ongoing journey in and out of racing officially, then we had highs and lows, but at the end of the day we went all in, and we finally performed all season to the necessary level. I think the team, and especially Toprak, really deserved this victory, so that makes us very proud. The sales numbers that we achieved is actually an all-time record for BMW, so that has to satisfy us, especially if you look at how the market is going and compare it to what our competitors are doing. So yes, it’s fantastic – but am I satisfied as the CEO? Of course not. I’m never satisfied officially – maybe I’m just a little bit proud!
However, while your annual revenue also rose slightly by 0.2 per cent, your operating profit dropped by a lot – 23.6 per cent – and the profit margin too. Have you identified the reasons?
Yes, of course, this is my daily business. This is the bread-and-butter job that you do in the morning, to understand your numbers, and we’ve seen two aspects that brought us to this result. One is that the competition in pricing has become tougher, especially in China, but also in other markets where we see competitors giving discounts that we, to some extent, need to match. That’s the first aspect. The second is price increases from the parts suppliers – material costs. So that’s basically it.
In the US, these figures actually predate the effects of President Trump’s tariff war, in as much as any forecast is possible from one day to another in his case. What do you expect these tariffs will do to BMW Motorrad’s immediate future there? Because North America is your second largest overseas export market for all your products, with 17,272 units sold there in 2024.
What we are currently seeing is that the sales that we do achieve are more affected by a general lack of confidence in the minds of the consumers, and not so much by higher prices caused by tariffs. So the problem is that people are reluctant to make a commitment, meaning they push back buying lifestyle and luxury goods like motorcycles, because they don’t know what milk and eggs will cost, rather than worrying about a couple per cent more on the price of a GS. Lack of confidence is the main problem we’re seeing.
So they’re deferring a possible purchase?
Exactly. There is a competition for the customer’s money. I think that our products are so strong, that whoever wants to buy BMW, he or she will finally buy BMW. But what we see is that people think twice or more before finally doing so, so long as this instability caused by the tariffs exists.
Your Indian partner TVS has now begun manufacturing your CE-02 E-Scooter for global sale, alongside the G 310 models that form perhaps 10 per cent of your overall sales. How many bikes did you sell in 2024 made by TVS?
Around 22,000 bikes.
That’s a significant amount. Do you plan to extend your collaboration to other models? For example, will the F 450 GS Concept come to market soon, and will it be manufactured by TVS?
I think we can now speak openly about this, so I can reveal to you that the F 450 is a complete replacement for the 310, and it will be made entirely by TVS and launched at the end of this year.
So it will be a 2026 model on sale, roughly, when?
It will start production in India at the end of 2025, so will be on sale early in 2026.
Will it start only as a Roadster model like the G 310, or will you maybe begin with the GS version?
You guessed right – the F 450 GS will be the first model! We will start with that, but then as you know, we don’t develop an entirely new platform just for one model, so you can expect other variants to follow.
Well, that answers my next question, which was if BMW and TVS were going to produce an answer to the Triumph 400 also made in India, which of course is a major competitor of the 310, but with a bigger engine. So the answer is yes!
That’s exactly it – while doing that, we upgraded the field from one cylinder to two cylinders, because I think this is what our customers want to see from us. The feedback that we got from the F 450 Concept at EICMA last year was fantastic, so we are trying everything to make the production model really look just like that design.
Will you continue to make the G 310 singles, though, perhaps for less affluent countries, or for newcomers to motorcycling who want something with less performance?
No. As I said earlier, the F 450 is the successor to the 310. It replaces it completely. However, in some markets this will be deferred by one year or so, because of specific local conditions in that market.
India is increasing in affluence all the time, with 8301 BMW motorcycles sold there in 2024. Will you consider assembling larger-capacity, German-made models there from CKD kits?
We have existing CKD plants in Thailand and Brazil, and we will continue with such operations there, but there is no CKD production currently envisaged for India. Any Indian customer who wants a larger BMW has to import it. The market for such models there is not yet at the size that would justify us to establish an Indian assembly operation.
You launched BMW’s entry into the cruiser market with the R 18 back in 2020 during the pandemic, and you’ve now got five variations of this platform – plus the middleweight R 12, which you introduced last year. Have sales of the cruiser models met your expectations?
That is a tricky question but, in all honesty, the numbers that we’re doing, in absolute terms, are quite strong, but the anticipation at the time when we made the decision to enter the segment was much higher in terms of volume. So, we’ve had to correct our initial assumptions, but with the results that we see, we are still quite OK. Better in than out.
Did the R 12 give you the extra kick in the overall cruiser market you would have been expecting?
I never judge the R 12 in the context of the big cruisers, to be honest. It’s a different ethos. There are similarities in the name, R 12, R 18, so that’s why you put them in the same segment, but in reality, it’s a totally different customer. So I don’t view the R 12 family predominantly being cruisers – the R 12 base model has some cruiser genes, but that’s about it.
So it’s more like an Indian Scout, versus an Indian Chief or Chieftain?
That’s probably a better comparison than matching it against Harley-Davidson’s Custom line.
However, H-D sales have declined very steeply overall but BMW is still performing really well, both overall and in North America. Is this because the US market for cruisers is declining?
Definitely. The numbers show it. The cruiser market is declining quite steeply, and our competitor has a very strong stake in that. It’s a very loyal but closed community, where brand is more important than product. In my opinion the best strategic direction for us will be that we will play to our strengths – we’ll do our own thing, and focus on our own loyal community by offering them true BMW products with their own distinct personality.
So is the R 20 Concept that you already displayed a year ago part of that?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The boxer silhouette is the most iconic design feature that we have, and with the big boxer it’s even more so. I just had a first ever run on the R 20 test rig last Monday, with the ergonomics of the bike representative of the series production models. So I could test ride it, admittedly just on the rig, but I could already see that it delivers exactly what we briefed our engineering team to deliver, in terms of the feeling of a scaled-up R 18. It’s a true BMW Big Twin Boxer.
When will you put it into production?
This is something we cannot disclose just yet, but if the first prototypes are now on the rig, perhaps you can work it out for yourself!
With the American market such an important element in BMW’s overall sales as your second largest export market after France, and with the famous Trump tariffs on the horizon, would you consider assembling bikes in the US, in the same way as you’ve been manufacturing first the Z-series sports cars and now the X-series SUVs in South Carolina in quite large quantities for the past 30 years?
There are no plans to do that yet, but you’re right – if we wanted to, we could.
Given the potential growth in the MX and enduro market, which has seen your key European rivals Ducati and Triumph both join in, is BMW considering a return to the offroad sector for the first time since you sold Husqvarna to KTM in 2013?
You will not see us competing in motocross, because to be honest this doesn’t fit our brand. But, on the other hand, the heritage of the GS family goes back to winning the Dakar several times in the past. I’ve just experienced riding the original race version of the R 80 G/S in Malaga just a couple of weeks ago, and it was a fantastic experience, so I can definitely understand why the legacy of the GS is still so tuned into this model and this race. Some kind of offroad competition is definitely something we’re looking at, because it would fit the brand. But it must be done in the BMW way, and in the spirit of Dakar, rather than in the motocross way that those competitors you mentioned are doing.
Yes, but they’re also doing enduro, and presumably at least one of them, if not both, will end up racing in rallies like the Dakar – so is BMW is looking at doing this also?
I wouldn’t confirm that we are looking at Dakar, it’s just that this is where the GS legend comes from. Do I want to bring the GS topic again closer to racing? Yes.
But might that not then require you to build a single-cylinder bike as opposed to a twin?
I don’t really see that happening under the BMW brand. Single-cylinder bikes are not on our horizon.
OK, so under FIM Rally rules, it’d have to be a 450 twin if you wanted to enter Dakar – oh, you happen to have such an engine just about to reach production!
Or a boxer!
Now that would be a bike – a 450 boxer!
I haven’t said 450!
Oh, well it has to be a 450 because there’s a capacity ceiling for Dakar.
I didn’t say that we’d go for Dakar – I’d say that racing a GS is a strategic topic that we are working on. I’m curious to see what you and others will make out of that!
KTM is going through a rough period at the moment. Has this had any spinoff on BMW, particularly in terms of shared suppliers?
First of all, let’s say this: There was not one single person within BMW who applauded the fall of KTM. We have always had very good relations with them – they are actually really our neighbours; we speak the same language, we have resources that worked in KTM and the other way around, so we don’t feel any joy. However, I was surprised how little an impact there was on our supply base. We don’t share too many suppliers, but we managed to manoeuvre through any problems, so it hasn’t affected us negatively. But I want to underline that I hope their issues are resolved in a positive way.
We’ve only talked about ICE bikes so far, but inevitably electric products are on the horizon. Where does BMW Motorrad stand with EVs?
We already own 60 per cent of the EU electric market share with the CE-04, so if there is a demand for anything more, then we will have something to offer. But we will not force anything.
So currently BMW Motorrad is focusing just on Urban Mobility for two-wheeled EVs?
That is our direction. With everything we see and understand from our customer base, the demand for electric motorcycles in the segments of a GS or RR is non-existent. Motorcycling is about freedom and independence, and the electric vehicle does not fulfill that need at this time.
Your parent BMW AG company is the European leader in hydrogen-powered vehicles, as evidenced by its recent signing of a joint venture with Toyota to develop such products together. Is this something BMW Motorrad is considering? It does appear to have potential commercial appeal, which is presumably why all four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers have established a joint venture to explore the strategic benefits of such products.
In my previous function at BMW, I was responsible for the development of this strategy, including the car model that would incorporate the technology we are signing off with Toyota, so I understand why we are doing this. Politically and technically, there is a lot of reason on the car side to at least be prepared for something of this nature. But in the motorcycle area, we don’t believe it makes a lot of sense, because the energy density is not appropriate.
As proved by Kawasaki’s hydrogen-powered prototype, with the huge fuel canisters?
Yes. Like you, I’ve seen the bike and to me this doesn’t make sense. I cannot imagine why a customer would ever want a product like that. So, the same answer as to an electric GS or RR.
BMW finally won the World Superbike Riders title in 2024, but this year it seems you’re having some difficulty in retaining your supremacy. Is it that BMW is not allowed to run certain parts that you raced with last year?
This is exactly the case. We had some concessions in the past seasons, and these concessions were taken back all at the same time for 2025. You can say that we are at the moment the second-fastest bike in the field. But we have accepted the challenge, and there is something new to come for the next races from Misano onwards. This is how racing works!
I think Ducati’s 2024 rookie Nicolo Bulega may also be a factor, too, and now seems to be pretty close to Toprak in terms of skill and bravery?
Yes, we have a lot of respect for him – we’ve seen some fantastic performances from him this year. But also, if you look at Toprak, he’s helping us to bring the BMW back to the performance level that it had last year without the concession parts, and the season is not over yet!
The BMW model you’re using at the moment to compete in World Superbike, as well as very successfully in the Isle of Man TT and other road races, is the M 1000 RR. You personally for some years were the director of BMW M GmbH, overseeing its rise to become the world’s leading supplier of high-performance cars, as well as its fusion with BMW Motorsport. To what extent do you feel this M-Class concept has been as successful on two wheels as it has undoubtedly been on four?
To date we have sold 16,000 M bikes, and the demand is continually rising, so this is a clear yes. And it’s also a clear yes that we will further widen the range of M bikes, because the demand for performance, and for the most powerful roadbikes in the world, is huge.
On four wheels, you’ve now even got a 1-Series M – will you do the same thing with motorcycles and develop an M 450, for example, or an M 900?
I wouldn’t rule anything out, because the M concept has never existed in the context of a specific engine or a specific cubic capacity.
OK, so even potentially, an M 1300 boxer?
Potentially!
Would it only apply to a road sporting series, or could it also apply to a dual-purpose GS model?
If you look back to the R 80 G/S, it had BMW Motorsport paintwork when it was raced in Dakar, so we are very free to decide whatever we want. We work to our strengths, and every strategy that we take will start with the customer.
Chinese manufacturers are becoming ever more serious competitors to all Western brands. So how do you regard the growing threat and particularly friendly fire from someone like your partner Loncin with the Voge F900 DSX?
We were not pleased when we saw the Voge. On the other hand, price is one thing but identity is another, and customer care is another, and quality is also another. The total package we can offer to our customers has still many advantages.
Well, the BMW badge is a huge asset.
Yes, but it’s not just the badge. It’s the identity and engineering competence that makes people decide to buy a BMW, and buy another one next time, too.
Assuming a continued healthy level of growth, certainly more than 0.6 per cent annually, when do you envisage BMW Motorrad passing the magic 250,000 units a year?
On the day when the 250,000 contract is signed! Just looking at growth only is not what guides us. We want BMW Motorrad to be sustainable and profitable, but we also want to create loyal customers who come back when they want another new bike. So just growing for the sake of growth is not something that drives us.
