Royal Enfield bikes to cost more once new emission norms come

Bike maker Royal Enfield, a part of Eicher Motors, today said it will increase prices of its models once the new stricter emission norms are implemented.

The company is working on upgrading its entire models and will shift all of them to a new engine platform from April this year to make products compliant to stricter emission norms of 'Bharat Stage (BS) III' for two-wheelers in 13 cities and BS II in the rest of the country.

"Most definitely the new bikes will be expensive. The new engines will be of a different caliber and that will make them expensive," Eicher Motors Managing Director and CEO Siddhartha Lal told reporters here.

A Royal Enfield bike now costs close to Rs 1 lakh.

He, however, refused to give further details like the prospective date for making any formal price hike or the likely quantum of hike.

Royal Enfield has five models in the country — Classic, Classic 500 CC, Thunderbird, Machismo and Electra.

The company also said that it is facing a huge back-log in delivery of its premium model Classic 500, which will take at least five months to clear.

"Orders have been beyond our expectations and we have a back-log of 3,000-4,000 bikes in the domestic market and around 2,000 for export. We will be able to clear up the backlog only by June-July," Lal said.

He said the company has delivered over 1,000 units of the Classic 500 in the Indian market since the bike's launch in November last year.