Why there are so many scooters in Malaysia

[gunnyrob]

One of life's little mysteries solved. Am currently in Malaysia with the Navy & was wondering why there are so many scooters & almost no big bikes.

Found a BMW Motorrad store in Penang and a bike like my R1200GS is RM96,000 ($kiwi 40,000) for the base model without ABS.

In comparison, a 100cc Yamaha automatic scooter is RM2000 ($kiwi 800!)

You can rent scooters for RM 30 for the day. Piss funny.

[McJim]

Not getting cause and effect mixed up are you? Perhaps scotters are so cheap BECAUSE there are so many of them and there is no demand for big bikes therefore with the dealers unable to shift units they have to raise the prices to make ends meet.

Just another theory. :)

[90s]

Pretty hard to ride a litre sport bikes through crazy crowds to get to the ... unsuitable mud roads?
I go with McJim on this one.

[MacD]

The large capacity, European assembled, imported BMW has a much higher tax loading (http://www.maa.org.my/info_duty.htm) than the locally assembled low capacity scooter.

The joys of local industry protection.

[klyong82]

That is because the Malaysian govt. imposes taxes on luxury or imported vehicles. I think luxury cars is 300% tax and 200% on superbikes. Reason there are so many scooters or little 125cc's is because they are cheap I think they cost between RM4000-RM6000 brand new while an average new rebadged Mitsi family sedan cost RM40,000.

Most people cannot afford that kinda of money on vehicles hence the reason more little bikes on the road. Plus since these scooters are locally assembled the govt. has to keep the prices low or affordable to keep the industry going.

I remembered in 2000 I paid RM45,000 for a second hand mint 1995 CBR900 and I sold it a year later for the same price before I migrated to NZ. So that equates to NZ$18750 and that is almost a brand new price in NZ . If a vehicle is classified as a commercial vehicle then the taxes will be lower compared to a recreational vehicle. e.g in 1995 I bought a new RAV4 for RM150,000 and for that kind of money you can buy a brand new Mitsi Pajero too.

So buying a superbike in Malaysia is a luxury thing plus to get a 6 month rego for a 1000cc cost a few hundred ringgit (fair enough). An S500 Mercedes's rego is at least RM14000 (this was 7 years ago). Not sure now. Rego for those scooters? RM12 haha