Tvs To Launch Four Stroke Scooter

The first to be launched will be a four-stroke scooter which will roll out of the plant at Mysore by August or September this year. Over the next two years, another three scooters one with variomatic gearshift, a sports model, and a luxury model -- as well as a series of three or four motorcycles will be launched.

The managing director of TVS Suzuki, Venu Srinivasan said that though the two-wheeler market had shown only one per cent growth compared to last year, in the period October-December the growth had been as much as 12 per cent, and he hoped this trend would continue over the coming year. The rural market has grown, he said, with motorcycles enjoying popularity.

 

The four-stroke scooter which will soon be launched would be the first major one to have been entirely indigenously developed. It is expected to meet emission norms for the year 2000 from the very beginning. He emphasised that two-stroke engines would not disappear off the roads when the year 2000s emission standards would become applicable. Were working on the two-stroke engines and with the use of catalytic converters, well be able to make them conform to those norms, he said.

The Millennium scooter, as the four-stroke scooter has tentatively been christened, has a 150 cc engine and four-speed manual gearshift with an electric start. It has been targeted to give a fuel efficiency of 65 kmpl in city driving conditions, and this, said Srinivasan, were close to achieving. The scooter will be priced extremely competitively, to compete with the higher end of Bajaj.

The plant in Mysore which will produce the Millennium scooter has a capacity of 1,00,000 pieces in the first full year of production (1999-2000) and double that within three years. This may appear ambitious but Srinivasan is optimistic that the market is very far from being saturated.

The new model is displayed at the TVS stall at the Auto Expo, along with their existing models. Other models include the Blade Runner and the newly launched Shaolin.