The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.
Average MPG of Motorcycles (2023)
Since a typical motorcycle owner spends nearly £500 a year on petrol, finding a bike with good fuel efficiency can make a big difference to the amount of money you spend on motorcycle-related expenses each year. How many mpg does your bike get—and how does this compare to other motorbikes?
We've calculated the average miles per gallon (mpg) for petrol motorcycles to give you a benchmark for understanding how fuel efficient any given motorbike is—as well as typical mpg figures for popular BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Triumph and Piaggo motorbikes.
Average Miles Per Gallon for Motorcycles
The typical motorcycle gets around 56.7 miles per gallon—but fuel efficiency varies significantly depending on the type of gearbox on your bike. Semi automatic bikes get the best gas mileage (87 mpg on average). The vast majority of bikes in the database are manual transmission which guzzle the most petrol getting, at the other extreme, 53.2 mpg on average.
| Fuel Consumption for Petrol Motorbikes | |
|---|---|
| Manual | 53.2 mpg |
| Direct shift gearbox | 63.3 mpg |
| Automatic | 76.4 mpg |
| Continuously variable | 78.9 mpg |
| Semi automatic | 86.9 mpg |
| Average | 56.7 mpg |
In general, motorcycles are much more fuel efficient than cars—the average petrol car gets only 36 mpg compared to 57 mpg for a motorcycle.
MPG for BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Triumph, Yamaha and Piaggio Motorbikes
A few popular UK motorbikes stand out for getting particularly good gas mileage: the 125cc Honda PCX and the Honda Vision 110cc scooter. Both get around 115 miles per gallon due to their smaller engines. In contrast, bikes with larger engines tend to get worse gas mileage. For example, the BMW R1200 gets around 52.9 miles per gallon in real-life riding; the Kawasaki Z900 gets around 51.7 mpg.
Below find fuel efficiency data for popular BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Triumph, Yamaha and Piaggio motorbikes. As indicated by the wide range of results, riding style has a massive impact on how quickly your bike guzzles petrol.
Popular Motorcycle MPG
| MPG of Popular Motorcycles | Low | High | Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| BMW R1200 | 32.4 | 80.0 | 52.9 |
| BMW S1000 R | 36.7 | 142.7 | 44.7 |
| Honda PCX | 82.6 | 152.7 | 115.8 |
| Honda Vision 110 | 92.0 | 147.1 | 114.4 |
| Kawasaki Z 900 | 37.5 | 73.6 | 51.7 |
| Kawasaki Z1000 | 35.3 | 56.8 | 45.2 |
| Piaggio Vespa | 43.5 | 114.8 | 77.4 |
| Triumph Bonneville | 38.8 | 79.4 | 61.5 |
| Triumph Tiger 1050 | 40.0 | 59.7 | 49.2 |
| Yamaha Tracer MT-09 | 36.4 | 93.9 | 54.6 |
If you're researching motorbike fuel efficiency ahead of picking a motorcycle, keep in mind that fuel consumption is just of the many costs of motorbike ownership—the other big cost being motorcycle insurance premiums.
Also, as technologies improve vehicles tend to get better gas mileage. So if you drive an older motorcycle then upgrading to a newer model might save you on fuel at the pump. Those particularly concerned about running costs might want to consider an electric motorcycle, such as the Zero electric motorbike.
Methodology
To determine the average mpg for motorcycles we gathered data on two-wheeled vehicles from the Spritmonitor database, a site where users enter information on the gas mileage of their personal vehicle for a real-life representation of a vehicle's actual fuel efficiency. The resulting database contains over 20 million fuel ups for over half a million vehicles.
Entries are stored in a litres/100km format, so for use in the UK we converted these values into miles per gallon. Since there are 4.55 litres in a gallon and 1.609 kilometers in a mile, you can convert litres/100km to mpg (UK) by dividing 282.5 by the litres/100km value to get your mpg equivalent.
The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.