True but the 70MPG you could get on a more capable ICE bike isn't terribly expensive even at EU prices for gas, and Americans don't ride motorcycles for primary transportation anyway.
Depends what you mean by primary transportation, but lots of Americans commute by motorcycle. Especially in california lane splitting is a huge time savings in traffic (and legal here).
This is huge for places like LA. 2 hr commute or a 40 minute one where you lane split. I have never personally experienced this but my dad described getting his first bike a cb750 in LA as orgasmic. Being able to ride through traffic and not wait the hours he had to before was like nothing else he says.
Yes, I've done it for years myself. By "primary transportation" I mean that very few Americans own motorcycles and do not have an alternative means of transportation, often a car. Motorcycles are pleasure vehicles in the US -- you won't see a family making a Home Depot trip on the back of a Super Cub in the rain.
California looks outside and sees $5/gal. This is cheap?
Well, looks like it's around ~$7 in Europe based on www.globalpetrolprices.com, so yeah that would be cheap.
Yeah in a lot of Europe it’s more like $6-7. Used to be a bigger price difference, but california is not far behind. Texas though is still a lot less.
yes. add 40% on top of that for the UK price.
yeah its closer to US$7-8 a gal in Australia.
Europeans tax themselves significantly higher on gasoline than Americans are willing to go for.