VADODARA: Premium two-wheeler player DSK Motowheels will launch a 135-cc minibike by March 2017 to tap the volume market, a senior company official said on Thursday.

DSK Benelli Chairman Shirish Kulkarni said the proposed bike may cost Rs 1.3-Rs 1.5 lakh.

"We are busy completing the formalities, including trial, before commercially launching a 135-cc minibike by March next," he said speaking after opening DSK Benelli's first showroom here.

The company, which has a collaboration with Italy's superbike maker Benelli, has a Rs 350-crore manufacturing facility at Talegaon near Pune with an installed capacity of 50,000 units per annum.

The company, which started selling Benelli bikes earlier this year, aims to sell around 3,000 motorcycles this year. It also aims to sell around 2,500 Hyosung bikes during the period.

It currently sells five Hyosung superbikes, ranging between 250cc and 700cc, priced between Rs 2.84 lakh and Rs 5.99 lakh, ex-showroom Delhi.

"Together, we plan to sell around 5,500 bikes this year. The imported superbikes market is estimated to grow to around 15,000-20,000 units this year," Kulkarni said.

It also sells seven Benelli models, including TNT 25, a 300 cc bike, two 600 cc models, one 899 cc bike TNT R and TNT R Gold, priced between Rs. 1.84 lakh and Rs. 12.86 lakh.

The company aims to have around 30 dealerships by March, up from 21 outlets now.

On capex, he said the company plans to invest over Rs 100 crore in the next five years for expansion of plant as "we target to capture 60 per cent of the superbikes market in the country".

DSK Motowheels and DSK Benelli are part of diversified conglomerate DSK Group, which has presence in business verticals such as construction, auto, IT, education, pharma, hospitality, tours & travels and digital products, among others. 

Source : DSK Motowheels to launch 135-cc bike by March 2017

NEW DELHI: Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd (MFCWL) today announced the launch of a platform that allows buyers to participate in traditional 'on the ground' used-car auctions via internet in real-time.

The platform, True Time Bids will significantly improve efficiency of how vehicle auctions are conducted in India today, the company said in a statement.

MFCWL ran a pilot project of True Time Bids with Kotak Bank BSE -0.14 % prior to its launch.

 MFCWL Senior Vice President of eBusiness B Ganeshkumar said: "The pilot launch of Truetimebids.com with Kotak has been extremely successful and we look forward to taking this platform to all our clients over the next few weeks."

Stating that the platform will fundamentally change the way vehicles are disposed at auctions, he added: "Our clients are continuously looking for higher liquidity and more efficiency in our auction services, and we are pleased to develop and launch India's first simultaneous online-offline auction platform."

Typically, vehicle auctions are conducted offline while some are also done online to attract non-local bidders. The truetimebids.com platform combines both auction formats into one simultaneous auction event. 

The launch of True Time Bids is a part of Mahindra First Choice Wheels' overall aim to organise the used-car space in India and bring legitimacy and transparency to the market, the company added. 

Source : Mahindra launches new platform for vehicle auction

MUMBAI: Surprised by the huge response to its 'by India, for India' bike Navi launched this April, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) is planning to double its production to around 1 lakh units soon.

The Japanese two-wheeler major, which is inching closer to unseating the decades-old market leader Hero MotoCorp,replica watches had unveiled the Navi at the Delhi Auto Expo in February at price of under Rs 40,000. It was rolled out commercially in April.

Testing the market for a very stripped-down model with the Navi, which was fully planned, designed, and produced for the local market, Honda had expected to sell only round 2,000 units a month in the first year.

But it has already got huge backlog, and therefore, the plan to double the output.

"We have been really surprised by the humongous response to the Navi. It's really exceeded our expectations. We have, therefore, decided to almost double our capacity to 90,000 to 1 lakh units soon," the company's Senior Vice-President for Sales and Marketing Yadvinder Singh Guleria told PTI.

At the launch, the company had said it would be happy if it could sell 2,000 units a month and had an installed capacity of 50,000 per annum.

But Guleria said even though Navi was developed only for India, which became the largest market for Honda globally in June this year, overtaking Indonesia, they are shipping the bike to Nepal now.

"Last month alone we shipped as many as 500 units to the Himalayan nation," Guleria said, adding, "going forward, the company may look at exporting the bike to other Saarc markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well."

Asked about investment for the additional capacity for Navi, which is being manufactured at the 1.2 million units per annum Tapukara plant in Rajasthan, he said no additional investment is needed as they have a flexible assembly line.

With the Navi or 'New additional value for India,' Honda has truly disrupted the domestic two-wheeler market as it has created an entirely new segment of fun riding, he said.

Navi is powered by a 110-cc Honda HET engine with automatic transmission and is the first 100 per cent Honda India R&D- from concept development to commercial production.

Source : Buoyed by huge demand, Honda to double production of Navi

NEW DELHI: Country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki BSE 1.15 % India continued its hold on the Indian passenger vehicles segment with six of its models featuring in the top ten selling list in the first half of this fiscal, thereby helping the company maintain its market share. 

According to data from Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Maruti Suzuki India's (MSI) entry level car Alto retained its position as the best selling model in April-September period this fiscal with 1,20,720 units, albeit a decline of 7.93 per cent as compared with 1,31,128 units in the year-ago period. 

The company's hatchback WagonR moved up to the panerai replica watches second spot during the period selling 86,939 units as against 84,660 units in the year-ago period, a growth of 2.69 per cent. 

On the third spot was MSI's compact sedan Dzire selling 81,926 units despite a decline of 20.95 per cent from 1,03,651 units in the same period last fiscal. 

Maruti Swift was the fourth best selling model in the first six month of 2016-17 with the sale of 80,756 units as against 1,06,911, while Hyundai Motor India's compact hatchback Grand i10 was fifth with 71,703 units sold during the period as compared to 58,078 units a year ago. 

The South Korean car maker's premium hatchback Elite i20 was sixth best selling model clocking 61,784 units in the April-September period as against 66,037 units in the corresponding period last fiscal. 

Renault India's entry level car Kwid made it to the seventh position with a massive jump to 56,028 units as compared with just 381 units last year. 

Maruti's new models -- premium hatchback Baleno with 54,947 and compact SUV Vitara Brezza at 50,859 units were eighth and ninth best selling models, with the list rounded off by Hyundai's SUV Creta at 47,923 units as against 23,117 in April-

With six of its models in top ten best selling list, MSI maintained its share of 47.2 per cent in the domestic passenger vehicles market. 

The company sold a total of 7,05,287 units in the April-September period this fiscal while the total industry passenger vehicles sales stood at 14,94,039 units. 

In the same period last year, the company's market share was 47.29 per cent selling 6,28,963 units out of an industry total of 13,29,874 units.

Source : Six Maruti models like WagonR, SUV Vitara Brezza, Baleno in top ten list in H1 FY17

MUMBAI: Renault recently infused Rs 500 crore into the Indian subsidiary and is considering investing another Rs 2,500-3,000 crore over the next four years to support a major product push that the French carmaker has planned for this growing automotive market. 

Renault India Pvt Ltd allotted 50 crore shares valuing Rs 10 each to Renault Group BV a few months ago, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies. It was the second recent investment in the Indian unit, after a Rs 1,100 crore equity infusion in December 2015. 

Encouraged by the success of the Kwid small car, Renault is working out an aggressive product strategy for India. It plans to introduce one new product every year and bring SUVs, MPVs, crossovers and sedans priced under Rs 8 lakh to challenge the market dominance of Maruti Suzuki BSE 1.10 % and Hyundai Motor India. A large part of the planned investment will be in products and R&D resources, as manufacturing capacity is already in place.

"The sense of confidence in India is very high," said a person with knowledge of the company's plans. "The brand's presence in the top three global markets — China, US and Japan — is fairly modest. Now it has got a headstart in India, which is set to become the third largest market in the world in the coming decade. With a CMF-A platform, there are lot more segments the brand plans to address in coming years." 

CMF-A is a modular platform that can be easily tweaked to suit products in different segments. That will suit its India plans. Renault is seeking to bridge the gap between the Kwid and the Duster SUV with more B-segment cars in the sub-Rs 8 lakh market, as well as drive in a more premium SUV — internally codenamed HHA, it is likely to be launched during the festive season of next year and take on models such as the Mahindra XUV 500. At Renault, the message to the Indian team is clear, "think big", Bernard Cambier, the company's chairman for the Africa-Middle East-India Region, said during a recent interaction with Indian media. 

"I am fighting for investments and more models. We have a big engineering centre, robust purchasing department, the aim is to work towards more 100 per cent localised Indian models. Clearly the longterm ambition is to be in the top 3 — the podium — if not, then you are not a serious challenger," Cambier said, while declining to divulge specific information on products or investments. 

Source : Renault may invest Rs 3,000 crore to back new launches in India