From patent applications to emissions documents, digging into government documents from around the world can tell you a lot about current—and sometimes upcoming—motorcycles. Take the California Air Resources Board (CARB), for example. Documents filed there were how the motorcycle world-at-large first got wind that the Yamaha R7 was really happening. They’re also how we first learned that the Honda ADV150 was, to some surprise, officially headed to U.S. shores.
Of course, CARB issues executive orders for a multitude of both on-road and off-road vehicles—including ATVs. Since the regulatory body requires certain pieces of information in order to successfully process applications, those bits of info then become public record—and that includes horsepower figures. As the fine folks at ATV Rider noted, that’s particularly helpful for OEMs that don’t like to stick their HP figures in their public spec sheets.
