Upcoming Bajaj motorcycles (and scooters) few years down the line will mostly be electric and there is only one pending platform under works…!!!
Bajaj dropped an important press release yesterday. It announced a new plant completely dedicated towards electric vehicles. This facility, located at Akurdi (Pune), is already under works and Bajaj has targeted first vehicle roll-out by June 2022. You can read more details about it here.
That’s really quick for a new plant to go operational and start churning products. This is big news. But the press note carried an even bigger piece of information that Rajiv Bajaj, the Managing Director of the company revealed.
In his quote, Rajiv has said that the year 2001 presented Bajaj 2.0 when the brand Pulsar was introduced that transformed the company completely. And the year 2021 is the start of Bajaj 3.0 with Chetak (signifying electric).
He elaborated that its complete Research & Development drive train resources are now ‘laser focused’ on making electric solutions and there is only one ICE platform that is under development – ONLY ONE!!!
He adds that the company now believes that the time for electric vehicles may have come and the company’s shift in focus reflects the same.
Here is the complete quote..
In 2001 Bajaj 2.0 took off on the roaring Pulsar, in 2021 Bajaj 3.0 arrives on the charming Chetak. Going forward, for the Bajaj portfolio, except for implementing one state-of-the-art ICE platform that is currently under development, all our R&D drive train resources are now laser focused on creating EV solutions for the future. This alignment reflects our belief that light Electric Vehicles for sustainable urban mobility is an idea whose time may finally have come. Thus, this investment at Akurdi completes the virtuous cycle of hi-tech R&D competencies, high-efficiency engineering capabilities, world class supply chain synergies, and global distribution network which should leapfrog us into a market leading position in EVs in India and overseas.
This is for the first time a major manufacturer, of the magnitude of Bajaj, has said that it is putting its R&D resources (almost) completely into electric and that holds a lot of significance.
Obviously with one platform Bajaj can churn out various motorcycles that can go under different brands. But that, essentially, is it! Because platforms can not be made in one day and Bajaj’s departure from ICE engines suggests that – future is, indeed, electric.
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This is like parting with your bread and butter and legacy manufacturers are already labeled as laggards on this front.
It will be very interesting to see how the company goes about its electric vehicle portfolio and more importantly, how soon will the country switch to this very new mode of transport. And that, unfortunately, means that we may be nearing the death of roaring engines…
