Last month Noriaka Abe, then President and CEO Asian Honda Motor surprised everyone by officially announcing a mid-capacity motorcycle against Royal Enfield. He went on to say that they had already set up a team of people from Thailand and Japan in India to work on the said project. More Details
In a latest update on the same, according to Livemint, Minoru Katu, new President and CEO of Honda India hinted that the plans of this mid-capacity motorcycle have been put on hold. The reason cited was lack of cost-competitiveness in the over-250cc motorcycles.
He said..
“So far, from my point of view, the cost competitiveness as of today is not enough to compete in that segment,” Kato said. HMSI is very cost-competitive in big-volume models like the Activa scooter, which comes in 110cc and 125cc versions, but it doesn’t have the experience of developing motorcycles in the above-250cc (up to 450cc) segment,”
We are not sure if this project has been completely abandoned but what is apparent is that Honda has noticed the potential of this segment. Sooner or later they will pounce on this to pose a threat to Royal Enfield. Bajaj is the other manufacturer who has announced to go after RE’s share and has already launched its first motorcycle Dominar 400 in this list of many more to come.
Just a few days back, Honda has announced launch of four absolutely new two-wheelers in India, one of which is the Africa Twin and another motorcycle model is rumoured to be the XRE300 adventure.
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