The Quickshift
- Back in January, Zero Motorcycles announced a partnership with India’s Hero MotoCorp.
- The Zero FXE electric supermoto was spied testing in India.
- This could hint at either a new model based on the FXE, or the imminent launch of the FXE in the Indian market.
It’s a growing trend that shows no signs of stopping: top European and US motorcycle manufacturers are joining forces with Indian and Chinese companies. All this in a bid to tap into the massive Asian market, where sales volumes surpass those of the rest of the world combined.
We’ve seen some of the industry’s biggest names hop on the train—like Harley-Davidson teaming up with India’s Hero MotoCorp, KTM joining forces with CFMoto, and MV Agusta tying up with QJ Motor. Needless to say, these strategic partnerships are paving the way for these otherwise premium brands to gain traction in the Asian market.
Much more recently, yet another American motorcycle company has teamed up with an Indian giant. Zero Motorcycles, one of the pioneers in the electric motorcycle industry, has partnered with Hero MotoCorp in a bid to develop a new electric motorcycle platform specific to the Indian market.
Indeed, we talked about this in detail back in January, when the partnership was announced. Back then, the upcoming platform was supposed to be used for at least four new EV motorcycles. And while we thought that the two companies would be working on an entirely new, from-the-ground-up platform, it seems that they just might be going in a different direction—one that's much easier and could result in a faster go-to-market.
It seems that Zero and Hero have imported an FXE electric motorcycle into India, and are currently running tests on the bike on India’s roads. At least, that’s according to spy shots obtained by Indian automotive site Team-BHP. In case you weren’t aware, the FXE is one of Zero’s newer models, and is designed as a fun and sporty supermoto model.
And while fun and sporty is exactly what the FXE is in the context of the US and European markets, it could very well translate to practicality and agility on India’s traffic-dense, pothole-laden streets.
Granted, should Hero decide to make use of the FXE’s platform—or even decide to sell the FXE along with the rest of Zero’s lineup in India—it’ll surely have to make a few tweaks to optimize its performance.
You see, India has some pretty extreme weather. In the north side of the country, summers tend to be really hot while winter temps drop to well below freezing. Meanwhile, in India’s coastal regions, hot temperatures prevail for most of the year, and heavy rains and flash floods are a regular occurrence during the rainy season.
With all that being said, Zero’s technology stands the chance to change the EV game, not just in India, but in other parts of Asia, too. Up until recently, performance-oriented offerings in the EV motorcycle space have been far and few in between. And should Zero leverage the manufacturing efficiency and economies of scale of Hero MotoCorp, then chances are it’ll be able to sell its bikes at a fairly competitive price.
At the end of the day, when big brands partner up with Chinese and Indian manufacturers, it’s usually about streamlining costs. But a welcome byproduct of this is that they’re also able to make their bikes more accessible to a wider audience.
And I don’t know about you, but having more people on two wheels is always a good thing.
