American motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson on Sunday announced that as part of their ‘More Roads to Harley Davidson’ growth plans for the next five years that it will, in collaboration with an yet unknown Asian motorcycle manufacturer, produce a motorcycle in the 250-500cc segment aimed at the Indian and other Asian markets in India. Given that US President, Donald Trump, has railed against high Indian tariffs on imported motorcycles allegedly at the behest of Harley-Davidson, and actually led to India reducing tariffs on imported motorcycles.
However, Harley-Davidson will not be the first global two-wheeler brand using Indian scale manufacturing, Bajaj Auto is a partner of Austrian brand KTM, where they own a substantial stake and have incorporated features in their Pulsar and Dominar motorcycles. BMW’s new G310R and G310GS motorcycles are manufactured in collaboration with TVS at Hosur and TVS using the same engine manufacture the Apache RTR310. While Harley-Davidson did not specify the name of their ‘Asian’ partner, speculation has rested on a partner with significant engineering and manufacturing facilities in India. India’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, Heo Motocorp is speculated to be a potential partner, company officials refused to comment. This product will be aimed at the Indian market as well as other emerging markets, unlike BMW which sells the 310 products globally, and launched them in India only last week, a year after its global launch.
In a surprise, Harley-Davidson also announced that it has developed an all-new electric motorcycle called the ‘liveWire’ that will go on sale next year as will the company’s first adventure tourer, the ‘Pan America’ which is the first product on their new modular middleweight platform. These new products are seen by some to make Harley-Davidson more relevant in a highly competitive global market for premium motorcycles. The Indian 250-500cc segment has also become an important battleground for global manufacturers and electric motorcycles are the future in European cities and Harley-Davidson announced that by 2022 they will have a comprehensive range of electric motorcycles.
The ‘More Roads to Harley-Davidson’ will require significant investments from the American manufacturer, totally over $800 million including both operational and capital expenditure and the company expects a $1 billion boost in revenues in 2022 over 2017.