After its official showcase at the 2016 Auto Expo, BMW back in November 2016 confirmed the launch of their most affordable G 310R in India by ‘Spring 2017’, followed by the adventure G 310GS sometime in the second half of 2017 (link to report). However, it appears that they will not be able to adhere to their own set time lines.
According to a new report at Autocar India, official launch of G 310R has been postponed and is now expected later in the year. Interestingly, the Autocar guys go onto say that BMW will follow it up with the G 310GS also after the Roadster this year itself, which we think is not possible now! This will be their first mass-market motorcycle and for sure, the Bavarians will want to focus on it completely.
G 310R was a launch candidate for mid 2016; it slipped to late 2016 and was officially confirmed for the first half of this year. We are unsure what is causing the delay because the motorcycle is absolutely ready and is already launched in a few international markets and is being shipped out of India.
Since the prime-most rival of the G 310R will be the Duke 390, BMW may want to redraw strategies with KTM playing a masterstroke (of introducing Duke 250 in between and stuffing the 390 with a lot of premium features). Or they may want to reconsider its pricing and probably want to go a little more aggressive by forging more localised content (G 310R will be produced locally by TVS).
Nonetheless, BMW will launch its operations in India by mid-April and will introduce its big capacity full-fledged motorcycles like the R1200 range, K1600 range, R NineT range and the 2017 sports S1000R and S1000RR. The idea probably will be to establish a foothold initially before going mainstream. So, the wait for the most affordable German continues….
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