Hero Minus Honda Low Cost Bike plans on track!

2011 Hero Honda CD Dawn

A year ago, at the 2012 Indian Auto Expo, we had Pawan Munjal, the Managing Director of the erstwhile Hero Honda making, in what seemed like a game changing announcement. Mr Munjal announced to a packed gathering at the Auto Expo that Hero Honda is all set to build a low cost motorcycle, which would be the Tata Nano of the motorcycle segment.

A year has elapsed, and along with that Honda has dumped Hero to go it alone. Finding itself in the woods when it comes to new product development, which was done by erstwhile Joint Venture partner Honda all along, Hero is pulling itself up to make progress with the low cost motorcycle project. But thus far, not much progress has been made although the firm says that it continues it’s effort to come up with a solution. Here’s Mr Pawan Munjal’s take on it.

This has been on our horizon for a long time, but we haven’t been able to come up with a solution till now. But this is not the end and we hope to come up with a solution. We continue to work on this. Whatever we bring should certainly have a significant price advantage. Also, there is no compromising on either durability or performance.

While that is definitely a positive sign, a vendor also has echoed similar sentiments by stating that the low cost motorcycle will be ready by the first quarter of calendar year 2012.

But we are certain that it will be ready for production by the first quarter of 2012 calendar. Japanese-oriented companies were dictating vehicle and component design. Now, with only the Hero Group as decision maker, things are not only faster but development of a new product can also be done cheaper. The Hero Group is now asking each vendor if it can do without foreign collaboration, etc and whether product development can be done at lesser cost.

So, Hero minus Honda is definitely trying to find it’s feet in the Indian market after it’s joint venture with Japanese partner Honda saw a split earlier this year. The focus right now seems to be on low cost motorcycles with the other Indian homegrown manufacturer, TVS Motors, all set to usher in it’s own 30,000 Rupee motorcycle in 2012. So, the coming days might witness some frenetic action in the brad and butter commuter 100cc motorcycle segment. Watch this space.

Via DNA

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