In a move that could come as a big heave of relief for investors and shareholders, Hero MotoCorp has announced that it will start plonking its indigenously developed engines onto its bikes from the next year.
But does this please Hero’s buyers and fans?
According to Business Standard, three engines have been tested, and they have emerged out successful. It has clearly been stated that these engines will be introduced in their products from next year.
They have developed three engines with capacities of 100 cc, 110 cc and 250 cc respectively.
The engines have been developed by Hero MotoCorp with the assistance of their technical partners. After the split with Honda, it was widely assumed that Hero MotoCorp will be starved for technical inputs. However, they inked partnerships with firms like Engines Engineering of Italy, Austrian engine developer AVL and US-based performance bike manufacturer Eric Buell Racing. Two years down into the journey, they seem to have weathered the challenges successfully, at least this is what they claim!
A long time back, speculation had arisen about three different engines being developed by Hero MotoCorp. It was then stated that these will be used to power three new products. The three speculated products were :
- A New Scooter based on the Maestro
- A New Entry-Level Bike
- A New Performance-Oriented bike, probably quarter-litre
There is still no certainty about the products that will be powered by these new trio of powerplants. However, we do feel that the smallest engine could be called on to do duty on the New Splendor iSmart. It is going to be the first bike from the Hero stables that has been made possible without Honda’s know-how. It would feature the Intelligent Start-Stop technology, to take the Splendor’s heavenly fuel-efficiency figure even higher.
The 110 cc powerplant could make its way to the chassis of a new scooter based on the Maestro, though the speculation remains swirled with lack of details. As for the largest powerplant of the lot, we would ( And we also feel a lot of other readers too! ) like to believe that it eventually ends up pushing the all-new Karizma forward.
Though Hero recently unveiled the refurbished Karizma twins, the response has been far from enthusiastic. Nevertheless, these were just refreshes and rumors have been going around that an all-new Karizma is in the works, due sometime in 2015. Reports had also suggested that it could carry a quarter-litre mill, with heavy inputs from EBR.
With the latest developments, things seem to be en-route to Hero MotoCorp’s most powerful product ever!!
The company has also mentioned that they have 35 more products to work on and deliver. This is because at the time of the parting of ways from Honda, they had promised 50 new products from their own stables within a time-span of three years. There is absolutely no inkling as of now regarding what the new products will be. All we can do is wait and watch!
The word about the complete development and induction of the new engines on the products will definitely raise investor and shareholder sentiment, and will lead to positive word-of-mouth among the customers as well. Quite understandably, Hero seems to be in a positive loop at the moment. They are going into the remainder of the festive season with a lot of hope. In fact, they feel they could re-write their own record-books regarding sales figures!
Hero has also promised some real surprises at the forthcoming Auto Expo which we are hooked onto!
They have also set their sights quite high. Eventually, they want to do a Honda by encompassing various products within their portfolio and spreading wings to almost every corner of the world.
But will they be able to do a Honda?? The powerplants have some serious burden of expectations to carry forward.
Also Read: ZMR & Karizma R Power Figures Revealed; Official Videos Out: Hrithik Missing!
