Royal Enfield to shift to BS-III norm-compliant platform

Bike maker Royal Enfield, a part of Eicher Motors, today said it will shift entire production to a new engine platform from April this year to make products compliant to stricter emission norms 'Bharat Stage III'.

The company today showcased three new motorcycles, including one concept, primarily for the overseas markets.

"The year 2010 is an absolute crucial year for us as we are going to have a full switch over to a new engine platform from a 50-year-old one," Eicher Motors Managing Director and CEO Siddhartha Lal told reporters at the 10th Auto Expo here.

From April 1 this year, the company would start producing its entire range of products from the new 'unit construction engine' platform for rolling out BS-III emission norms compliance bikes, he added.

 

"We are producing 20 per cent of our total output from the new platform but from April it will be 100 per cent. All work and the investment have been already done," Lal said.

The company showcased three motorcycles -- Classic Chrome, Classic Battlegreen and the concept Caferacer. "These bikes are primarily for exports but we are considering to launch these in Indian markets as well," Lal said.

The company would commercially launch Classic Chrome during mid 2010 which would be priced at about $6,000 and if it finds its way into India then it could be offered over Rs 1.4 lakh, he said.

Royal Enfield would introduce Caferacer in 2012 in the European markets followed by Indian launch.

The company is expanding its capacity to 1 lakh units at its Chennai facility from existing 50,000 units at an investment of Rs 80-100 crore by 2012.

Sales of the company increased to about 52,000 units in 2009 from little over 43,000 units during the previous year and it expects to touch 60,000 units mark by the 2010-end.

"Our ambition is to produce 1 lakh bikes by 2012 and we should be able to sell this number by then," Lal added.

He further said the company is exploring and ramping up its sales in the new overseas markets like Latin American, South-East Asian and the African nations, in order to increase its contribution to 10-15 per cent by 2015.

Currently, exports consists of about 5 per cent in Royal Enfield's total sales of about Rs 400 crore.