 Chennai:
The Chennai-headquartered Royal Enfield, the motorcycle
division of Eicher Motors Limited will launch a 500cc
bike with a new Euro 3 compliant engine sometime in 2008
in Birmingham, UK.
Interestingly Royal Enfield will be the first Indian two-wheeler
manufacturer to have developed a Euro 3 compliant engine.
Incidentally, it was also the first to launch a four-stroke
engine over five decades back.
The
Rs198-crore turnover division ships to UK annually around
1,000 vehicles. The division sells three models —
Bullet Electra, Bullet Sixty-5 and Euro Classic —
fitted with 500cc engines.
While
CEO R L Ravichandran refused to confirm or deny the development,
sources say that the new integrated engine with electronic
fuel injection (EFI) is in the advanced stage of testing
and launch. The new engine will replace the existing one
in the models that are currently sold in the UK.
Last
year, Royal Enfield exported around 3,300 units and the
target for the current fiscal is around 4,000. Apart from
the UK, Royal Enfield exports to the US (Electra X, Bullet
Classic, Bullet Deluxe and Bullet Military), Germany,
France, Australia, Italy, Hungary, Japan and others.
While
that is for the overseas market, for the domestic market
Royal Enfield is testing a new 350cc aluminum twin-spark
integrated engine to be fitted in its sporty model Thunderbird.
Code
named TBTS (Thunderbird Twin Spark) engine, Royal Enfield
is expected to launch a model fitted with this engine
sometime later this year. Presently Thunderbird model
is powered by a lean-burn engine. And based on the customer
response the division would decide whether to have two
engine variants or phase out the existing one.
Incidentally,
the integrated engine or unit construction engine is expected
to slightly reduce the metal cost for Royal Enfield.
The
division has been working on different engine platforms
for the past two years and has developed an iron-cast
as well as lean-burn aluminum cast engines. The new engines
will also form part of its portfolio. In terms of gearshifts,
Royal Enfield has four-speed and five-speed geared models.
The division is rolling out all its new models with the
gearshift on the left, a marked departure from its earlier
Bullet models, which had their gearshifts on the right.
Last fiscal Royal Enfield sold 33,000 units showing a
growth of 2,000 units over the previous year. For the
current fiscal the division hopes to sell anything between
36,000-40,000 units.
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