Hero Motocorp, the country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer on Thursday unveiled its first in-house designed motorcycle the Splendor i-Smart 110. This is the first time Hero has installed their own engine on a motorcycle, more than six years after the split with their erstwhile partner Honda Motor Company. Speaking to the media at the launch, Pawan Munjal, Chairman and Managing Director, Hero Motocorp said that he expects this new motorcycle to be the first of several that the company will launch over the coming months that have been developed at Hero’s Centre for Innovation and Technology (CIT) near Jaipur.
While Munjal sounded optimistic about the domestic market, noting that the monsoons have been better this year than the past two years, he did mention that due to global economic upheaval Hero’s global plans have been hit. However, exports continue to be a big thrust for Hero and he mentioned that the company expected to start sales in Nigeria later this month. Nigeria is Africa’s largest two-wheeler market. He also mentioned that sales in Argentina and Mexico are to start soon. “There are similarities between the Indian market and these markets, this is why we entered the African and latin American markets first”, he pointed out. “Recent incidents in Bangladesh have been a setback”, he noted though, although work on the plant at Jessore is continuing and he expressed the possibility that this new plant could also service the north-eastern part of India.
“The last two-three years have not gone to plan”, Munjal said about Hero’s international ambitions. However, he felt that the establishment of CIT will help Hero. “CIT is developing products for the world, we are building the lEAP Hybrid scooter, which might be expensive but will showcase our technology”, he said. As for the domestic market, he said that Hero’s development plans have gone into overdrive. As per the terms of the settlement with Honda, Hero was allowed to produce certain models and four models - the Maestro, Impulse, Passion X-Pro and Ignitor have to be replaced by or before 2017.
“We have shown our intent with this motorcycle”, Markus Brawnspeiger, Hero’s German technical head said. “We have used advanced materials and technologies in developing this engine”, he added and said that engine development work was carrying on aggressively at CIT with more in-house motorcycles to come including the possibility of higher capacity engines.