Honda’s upcoming Royal Enfield rival to be completely localised - Report

The upcoming Royal Enfield competitor from Honda will be completely localised, according to a report from CarandBike. In an interaction with the CEO and President of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter Limited (HMSI), Minoru Kato, the website learns that the upcoming motorcycle will be in the 300-400 cc segment. It will also be fully localised and entirely different from the brand’s global portfolio.

The report states that the bike needs to be developed from ground-up and will be ready by 2020. It goes without saying that the bike will have no relation to the Honda Rebel series.

Kato said:

We have strong intentions to start this project, and it will depend on the decision making process, which includes creating a concept, selecting the engine capacity, type, model, etc. It will be 100 per cent made in India, otherwise it's very difficult to compete from a cost-competitiveness point of view.

Also Read: Honda Rebel 300 will not be HMSI’s Royal Enfield challenger – Report

The motorcycle will primarily lock horns with Royal Enfield products. Royal Enfield holds 95% market share in the middleweight segment (250-750 cc) and aims to be the world leader in this segment. The brand has also witnessed a 30% growth of its 350 cc models on a year-on-year basis. In the first quarter of FY 2017-18, it sold 169,252 units with the Classic 350 its best-selling model.

At present, there are no enthusiast-centric products from Honda India other than the CB Hornet 160R. The CBR 150R and CBR 250R are not available currently following the transition from BS-III to BS-IV emission norms.

[Source: CarandBike.com]