As a major producer of multiple types of vehicles for its home market in India as well as for export elsewhere, Bajaj Auto has its fingers in a large number of pies. One continually interesting thing about the company isn't just the vehicles it produces; it's that its managing director, Rajiv Bajaj, tends to be extremely candid about its plans for the immediate future in interviews.
In fact, he shows up to talk to CNBC-TV18 on a regular basis, where he rarely fails to drop choice nuggets of insight into what Bajaj plans to do in the coming months. His most recent appearance on the channel alone spawned talk of Bajaj's plans for its first-ever compressed natural gas (CNG) motorcycle soon.
For just about anyone else, that kind of news would be more than enough to seed into the international motorcycle ecosphere. But for Bajaj, though, it clearly isn't. Shortly after dropping that CNG bike news, the MD talked about how the Triumph project is going.
So far, he says, they're successfully producing 20,000 of the existing Triumph 400s (that's the Speed 400 and the Scrambler 400 X, if you're keeping track at home) per quarter. With a little extra effort, he estimates that the factory can realistically up production to 30,000 per quarter to keep up with the strong demand for those Triumphs.
How soon does he see factory expansion to accommodate increased production happening? Theoretically by July 2024, if all goes according to plan. Of course, there are a few months between now and then, and even the best-intentioned plans can sometimes go awry. So, we'll see what happens and when it happens.
But if all does go well, the MD says that Bajaj should be good to produce 10,000 Triumphs per month come September, just in time for the festive season in India. These bikes will be made for both the domestic and international markets. But is another coming?
When asked directly whether Bajaj currently has plans to build any bikes for Triumph with larger displacements than the current 400cc range, Rajiv Bajaj flatly said that no, Bajaj will be staying in the 400cc segment for now. However, he did add that Bajaj will be building semi-knocked down (SKD) and complete knocked down (CKD) versions of the bikes for assembly in other factories.
While the MD says that there are currently no plans for Bajaj to build any larger-displacement machines in its partnership with Triumph, he did also say that the company plans to make at least one additional 400cc bike annually for Triumph for at least the next three years.
Here's what Rajiv Bajaj said, and we'll quote verbatim here:
"I stand by the statement that you refer to that every year there should be at least one, not just one, new distinct new Triumph motorcycle centered around the 400 cc displacement engine. And for sure it will be there. We expect a new motorcycle this year. And indeed for the next three years at least, there are several products in development right now."
The partnership took some time to produce its first fruits, but once it did, it seems to have hit the ground running. Demand for the first two bikes in the range, the Triumph Speed 400 and Scrambler 400 X, has been high in India.
International interest has also been high, with lots of positive comments on the impressive level of fit, finish, and componentry seen on these bikes as compared to a lot of other machines in this class. While RideApart hasn't ridden one yet, I did have the chance to check these bikes out in person, and the look and feel (at least, preliminarily) is what you'd expect from Triumph.
Can we expect to see a Daytona 400, or a Tiger 400, or a Bonneville 400? It's not yet clear which of these, if any, we might see first. What we can say is that, given what we've seen so far, it most certainly appears that Triumph wants to stick to making smaller-displacement variants on existing model families that are already within its current range.
In any case, Mr. Bajaj didn't give any further details about the upcoming Triumph 400s, but we'll be sure to report on them once more information is available.
