c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
esc
cancel

Updates from May, 2012

  • NEW DELHI — Honda launched the lowest-cost motorbike in its lineup on Tuesday for sale in the India market, aiming to double India’s share of its motorcycle revenue by the end of the decade while racing to catch up with rivals in fast-growing emerging markets.

    Honda, the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and Japan’s third-biggest carmaker, has struggled to make major inroads in high-growth, price-sensitive markets such as India, where a former joint venture deal once excluded it from the key commuter motorbike segment.

    Commuter bikes account for around 70% of India’s motorcycle market, which grew 14% over the last financial year to 10-million sold and is second only to China.

    Related

    “It’s very positive for Honda that they can finally compete in the mass market here,” said Vineet Hetamasaria, automotive analyst at PINC Research in Mumbai.

    “The pricing is in the right area … and given Honda’s brand equity, the bike is definitely going to make a dent in the market shares of others.”

    The motorcycle is Honda’s cheapest worldwide, Keita Muramatsu, president of Honda Motorycle & Scooter India, said at the bike’s launch in New Delhi.

    Honda, the top seller of scooters in the Indian market but lagging in larger commuter bikes, has been steadily raising production and sales across the two-wheeler segment since it ended a 26-year joint venture with India’s Hero in March of last year in an $852,991,340 deal.

    It has since announced fresh investment worth 20-billion rupees ($373,872,820) as it looks to chase down Hero, its former partner and the current market leader in commuter motorcycles.

    The Japanese company is constructing its third two-wheeler factory in the country and overtook Bajaj Auto as the country’s No. 2 in two-wheeler sales in March.

    Honda expects India to account for 30% of its global motorcycle revenue by 2020, up from 13% now, Muramatsu said.

    The Japanese automaker, which also builds cars in India, has been less aggressive than global rivals such as General Motors and Volkswagen in targeting emerging markets such as India and China.

    It abandoned a one-size-fits-all global parts sourcing approach in its car business in 2010 to search for local suppliers for its global plants to help it reduce costs.

    Dressed in a Honda T-shirt, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar unveiled the 110cc Dream Yuga motorcycle on Tuesday, touting the advantages of a motorbike over a car on the clogged roads of India’s cities.

    Sales of motorbikes, a family vehicle for millions of Indians, outstripped car sales by five to one in the last financial year, partly helped by high interest rates and fuel costs that pushed up the price of automobile ownership.

    “India will be the most important market and will continue to be in focus for the next 10 years,” said Yadvinder Singh Guleria, marketing head for Honda India. He added that Honda expected to boost exports from India to 150,000 two-wheelers in the year to March 2013 from 111,000 the year before.

    Globally, two-wheelers accounted for about one-sixth of Honda’s revenue in the latest financial year to March 2012.

    Other Japanese motorcycle makers are also ramping up capacity and targeting volumes in India.

    Yamaha this week announced a new $280,665,200 factory in India to nearly triple capacity to 2.8-million motorcycles by 2018, while Suzuki, which will likely launch a mass-market offering this month, is building a new factory to take its India capacity to close to 1-million motorcycles by 2014.

    © Thomson Reuters 2012


    1:00 pm on May 15, 2012
     

  • I know it’s going to be difficult for traditional motorcyclists — especially young, traditional motorcyclists — to believe this, but there’s more to motorcycling than speed. Indeed, with the onslaught of ever more hyper-powered superbikes, speed is largely becoming irrelevant. What use are 175 horses if you’re stuck in traffic? How many times will you actually go 300 kilometres an hour when the speed limit is an increasingly and stringently regulated 100 km/h? And what use are third-gear power wheelies when popping the front wheel is likely to buy you a one-week ban for “stunting?”

    However, there are motorcycle companies willing to talk about this issue. When you think about it, virtually every major manufacturer — save the cruiser-oriented Harley-Davidson — still has a vested interest in convincing you that more is better and too much is never quite enough.

    That’s why Honda Canada’s focus on new and non-traditional riders of late is a brave move, one that sees the world’s largest bike maker focusing on radically different market segments rather than the traditional sport and cruiser riders.

    It hasn’t always met with success. Though the CBR125R is a best seller — and its grown-up sibling, the CBR250R, will almost certainly be as well — other attempts at selling motorcycles to people who don’t like motorcycles (cue the quirkily styled DN-01 here) have not fared as well. So, it’s a brave Honda that keeps stalking down this same path, its latest offering yet another attempt to broaden motorcycling’s appeal beyond the core hooligan.

    The NC700 — available in both quasi-adventure touring X guise and as a naked S model — looks far more traditional than the way-rad (most would say too rad)  DN-01. It has regularly sized wheels, there’s a traditional six-speed manual (though an automatic-shifting DCT may be offered) and it looks very much like the Japanese equivalent of Aprilia’s Shiver.

    The attributes Honda’s pushing for the NC, however, are anything but traditional, at least here in North America. For instance, though maximum horsepower hasn’t been finalized, it’s almost assured that the 700-cubic-centimetre parallel twin will put out less than 60 hp, fairly minuscule numbers for the engine’s displacement. And, looking at the instrument gauges, the first thing I noticed is that the tachometer is redlined at a low (almost diesel-like) 6,500 rpm. What the …?

    On the other hand, Nick Smirniw, Honda’s senior product planner, says the NC700 manages about the same fuel economy as the incredibly frugal single-cylinder CBR250R. In England, they’re talking about 80 real-world miles per gallon (3.5 litres per 100 kilometres), a figure usually only matched by the lowest powered of scooters.

    The NC700 feels different to ride. Since it’s a mid-sized motorcycle, one expects it to rev to the moon and then, when you try to spin it, a pretty harsh rev limit halts the party at 10-bloody-30-on-a-Friday-night (OK, 6,500 rpm). It’s odd, and a typical motorcyclist — which was me for the first 15 minutes aboard the X — will be banging hard against that rather abrupt rev limiter.

    But switch gears (metaphorically speaking) and start short-shifting (literally) the slick six-speed tranny to keep the engine in its 2,000- to 6,000-rpm sweet spot and it all starts to make sense. No, it’s no road ripper, but, on the other hand, I had no trouble keeping up with the 1,000-cc Varadero adventure bike that was my guide. Unless I was trying to play junior hooligan, I would have never noticed the lack of top-end power.

    The closest comparison I can come up with is the old BMW R100 airhead I used to own. The power started right off idle and there wasn’t but 50 or 60 rear-wheel horsepower available whether you spun it to 5,000 or 7,000 rpm, but it never really felt underpowered — just adequate in the best sense of the word. The NC700 is a modern version of the Beemer with a heaping dose of civility.

    The engine also has some character, a sensation many complain is sometimes lacking in modern Hondas. Though the engine is a parallel twin, its crankshaft has the pistons spaced 270 degrees apart (360 is much more common) and — even more unusually — the two cylinders don’t share common cam timing; the intake cams for each cylinder are different. The effect is the loping beat of a 90-degree V-twin, not unlike the thumpa-thumpa of an old air-cooled Ducati. It would be nice to hear the NC700 with a little more soulful exhaust pipe, however.

    The engine is also canted radically forward, barely 28 degrees from the horizontal. Combined with the gas tank that is under the seat (the traditional gas tank is actually a scooter-like storage area that can fit most common-sized helmets), it makes for a very low centre of gravity. Even with a seat height on the tallish side (830 millimetres), that lower concentration of mass makes the NC700 a doddle to ride. And, to make sure that everything is manageable for the envisioned newbie rider, ABS is standard.

    Honda has not yet set pricing, but it promises the NC700 will slide into Canada with a retail price below $9,000. It is not for everyone and, indeed, if your motorcycling life is full of powerslides and wheelies, the NC700 is definitely not for you. But there are oodles of new and returning bikers — who are cutting their teeth on CBR125s and CBR250s — for whom the NC700 is an ideal trade-up vehicle. And Honda is to be congratulated for actually paying more than lip service for bringing new riders into the sport.


    2:00 pm on December 8, 2011