India is the world’s biggest motorcycle market, and so it’s easy to understand how it often sets the stage for tech innovations for the rest of the world. It’s also an extremely price-sensitive market, so more often than not, these tech innovations focus on making people’s hard-earned money go as far as it can.
We recently saw this in Bajaj’s first CNG-powered motorcycle, the Freedom 125, a model praised for its affordability, accessibility, and reduced emissions.
And it’s clear that Bajaj has taken a step in the right direction with the Freedom 125, particularly when it comes to making mobility more accessible to more Indians. So it should come as no surprise that the Freedom is just the start of Bajaj’s CNG-focused initiatives.
The CEO of Bajaj Auto, Rajiv Bajaj, recently sat down with the folks at CNBC-TV18, and explained his company’s vision in the CNG space. He explained that the company will soon release yet another CNG model. Bajaj even went as far announcing the company’s goals of producing up to 100,000 CNG-powered two-wheelers. “We stand on the cusp of monthly sales and production of 100,000 clean energy vehicles by this festive season,” he explained.
The widespread use of CNG-powered two-wheelers makes a lot of sense in India, where the government is trying to strike a balance between affordability and reduced emissions. As of this writing, Bajaj has already sold around 2,000 units of the Freedom 125, a small-displacement workhorse that’s fed by a two-kilogram CNG cylinder paired with a two-liter fuel tank. Combined, the bike boasts a very impressive range of 330 kilometers (206 miles).
Bajaj is pretty dead set on capitalizing on the benefits of CNG, as it forecasts quite a bit of growth in the segment. Rajiv Bajaj explained that the company hopes to sell up to 40,000 CNG motorcycles per month by 2025.
If we look at things from a global perspective, the focus on CNG clearly aligns to the mobility needs in other parts of Asia, Africa, and parts of the world where similar market dynamics exist.
But in the context of the western market, it’s clear that consumer preferences, and not to mention infrastructure, are vastly different. CNG vehicles are cheap to buy, run, and maintain, but this affordability comes at a cost: performance. CNG-powered bikes, in particular, tend to be heavy as they make use of a large fueling system. They also tend to be down on power, too.
And so, while CNG bikes make perfect sense in the context of India and other emerging Asian countries, their use in the western world might not be as effective.
