Hero MotoCorp’s growth may have reached a plateau but they still have a lot of aces up their sleeves. The good thing is that they are trying to break away from Honda’s dependence completely. As a first step, the company is preparing its own engines and the first indigenous scooter to start rolling from the company’s lines will be the 110cc Dash. As per a report on Autocar Professional, Hero has started production of the automatic scooter at their Gurgaon facility.
This gives a signal that the company is getting ready to launch the Dash in the next few weeks or months. Dash will be one of the most important product for Hero as it carries a new engine developed by Hero without any help from Honda and its success and feedback (from the customers) will really decide things for the company.
The new 111cc indigenous 4-stroke single cylinder engine produces 8.44 bhp of maximum power at 7,500 rpm and 9.4 Nm of peak torque at 5,750 rpm. Dash weighs 110 kg and has a ground clearance of 155 mm. It gets a 6 Liter fuel tank of which 1.8 Liter is reserve. In comparison, its chief rival Activa produces 8 bhp of power from its 109.2cc engine, which the Maestro also uses (Hero pays royalty to Honda for Maestro).
And it gets abundantly clear that in the longer run, Hero will have plans to discontinue Maestro as soon as Dash gains momentum. But for now, both the products will continue to be on offer.
Talking about Dash’s features, it gets telescopic front suspension (something which the market leader Activa still does not get), tail mounted fuel lid, USB charging point and service due indicator, apart from others.
The report further states that the company is trying to build an inventory of 30,000 to 35,000 units before launch. In February Hero sold 67,442 units of the Pleasure and Maestro, which might seem trivial in front of Activa, but is still a sizeable number.
