Motorcycle Manufacturing: Hand Frames to ABB Robots

Motorcycle manufacturing sits between a craft workshop and a car plant. A frame has to be strong enough to carry an engine at speed, and on many bikes it is also on show, so every weld is seen. This post follows the work from the first series production motorcycle in Munich, through hand built frames and Honda's Super Cub, to factories where robots weld frames, move engines and carry finished bikes to the test bench. It also covers how ABB robots have been used for motorbike frames, what happened at Moto Guzzi this autumn, and what electric bikes change for the line.

A welder in a mask works on a motorcycle frame in a workshop, 2005. Photo: Chris Yarzab / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

How the first motorcycles were built by hand

The Hildebrand & Wolfmüller of 1894, built in Munich, is generally counted as the first motorcycle sold in series and the first to be called a Motorrad. It had a water cooled twin cylinder engine whose connecting rods drove the rear wheel directly, a little like a steam locomotive. Each machine was assembled by hand in a workshop, with a tube frame made much like a bicycle frame of the time. Production lasted only a few years, but it showed that people would buy a powered two wheeler.

A Hildebrand & Wolfmüller of 1894, the first motorcycle built in series, at the National Technical Museum in Prague. Photo: Addvisor / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Early factories grew out of bicycle shops and kept their methods. In Milwaukee, Harley-Davidson's assembling room of 1917 had long rows of bikes on stands, with fitters moving from one to the next. Frames were cut, mitred and joined by brazing or gas welding, and forks and tanks were sprayed with enamel by hand. Quality depended on the skill of each worker, and a busy shop needed many of them. That approach suited a few thousand bikes a year but not the volumes that came after the war.

The assembling room of the Harley-Davidson factory in Milwaukee, 1917, with rows of motorcycles on stands. Photo: Harley-Davidson Motor Co. via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Honda changed the scale. Its Super Cub, launched in 1958, used a pressed steel backbone instead of a tube frame, so it could be made with presses and jigs, and Honda built its Suzuka factory around it. The Cub went on to pass 100 million units in 2017, more than any other motor vehicle. As volumes grew, frame makers moved to automatic welding, and by the 1990s Japanese manufacturers were producing welded aluminium frames with robots.

A first generation Honda Super Cub of 1958 on display. Photo: Mj-bird / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

How robots weld, paint and move motorcycles today

On 2 September 2026 Moto Guzzi opened its rebuilt factory in Mandello del Lario, Italy, after almost five years of work and more than 50 million euros. The plant now has automated engine assembly lines and a robotised conveyor that links the engine building to final assembly. At the end of the line, finished bikes are carried to final testing by Kilo ground drones made by Piaggio Fast Forward, a Piaggio Group company. Capacity has risen to more than 30,000 motorcycles a year, and a museum window lets visitors watch bikes being assembled.

The Moto Guzzi factory in Mandello del Lario on Lake Como, seen from above in 2019, before the rebuild finished in 2026. Photo: Kaitu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB robots have welded motorbike frames since the 1990s. The Italian frame maker MT, founded by Guido Giovenzana after he worked at the moped company Fantic Motor, told ABB in 2006 that it ran 21 robot welding systems. Its plant in Garbagnate Monastero made motorbike frames and a second plant in Lecco made scooter frames, together around 300,000 units a year for well known Italian and foreign brands. MT said its next goal was to make robot welds on visible aluminium frames look as good as hand work.

A motorbike frame held in a robot welding fixture at MT in Italy, from ABB's 2006 customer article. Photo: ABB

The ABB robots used for this job today are arc welding arms such as the IRB 1520ID and IRB 2600ID, whose hoses and cables run inside the upper arm so they do not snag on a frame. They work with positioners that turn the frame so each seam is welded flat, coordinated as external axes. ABB paint robots such as the IRB 5500 can coat tanks and panels in sealed booths. For small builders, the GoFa cobot arc welding package lets a welder teach seams by hand, as our cobot welding post shows.

ABB arc welding robots at work on a vehicle frame, from ABB's Robotic Arc Welding brochure. Photo: ABB

What electric motorbikes mean for the factory floor

Electric motorcycles move the hard parts of the job. There is no engine to build, but there is a battery pack, a motor and power electronics, and these need clean, precise assembly. Demand is growing in India, where the electric bike maker Ultraviolette announced plans for an 82 million dollar plant in September. Battery module and pack lines already use industrial robots for handling and joining, and ABB arms of the kind it uses in its own battery cells could fill the same role in a motorbike plant. That is a possibility, since no such ABB project has been announced.

An ABB arc welding robot welds a part held in a fixture. Photo: ABB

Painting will keep its place. Riders choose bikes partly on colour and finish, and tanks and panels with deep curves are hard to coat evenly by hand. A paint robot gives the same film thickness on every part and keeps workers out of solvent air, the job once done by men spraying forks in Harley-Davidson's enameling room. Inside the plant, mobile robots like ABB's Flexley Mover AMRs could do the transport work that the Kilo drones now do at Moto Guzzi, carrying parts between stations without fixed conveyors.

Workers spray motorcycle forks in the enameling room of the Harley-Davidson factory, 1917 to 1918. Photo: Harley-Davidson Motor Co. / War Department via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The open problems are model variety and skills. Motorcycle makers build many models in small batches compared with car plants, so a welding cell has to change fixtures and programs quickly. Building and checking programs offline in RobotStudio cuts that changeover time. Robot cells cost money that a small brand may not have, and the people who program them need training in welding as well as robotics. Custom bikes will likely stay hand built for a long time, while volume models move further toward the robot lines MT and Moto Guzzi describe.

A welder uses a teach pendant to program an ABB arc welding robot. Photo: ABB

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