Honda’s global bikes may ride on Indian parts

Posted at December 10th, 2009 under Auto News |  Print This Post

Honda Motor Company has found out a source for sourcing its components, in the Indian sectors. This will cover the big, global and small bikes. For assembling the bikes in Japan, the components will be derived from the Indian players according to the company sources. The changing trend in big bikes especially price is the main factor for sourcing the components from low cost countries.

Further, newer factors like fuel efficiency by way of electric and hybrid modes also necessitated this. Honda is no exception to these hassles in the business and has to gear up for the future with light weight vehicles. India is chosen for its robust supply strategy in terms of quality and price. These component vendors fill in the slot quite genuinely in the domestic market, as seen in the rise of Splendor and Passion from Hero Honda.

Honda is currently assembling its bikes from its Kumamoto facility, from which fuel-injection components for bikes as Glamour and Stunner are delivered. There was a display for the journalists at the R&D centre, of VFR 1200 F dual clutch transmission motorcycle. The vehicle offers both manual and automatic transmission to the riders.

For Honda, Europe will be the first target for next year, followed by the US, Japan and China. Brazil will be added in 2011; Russia will continue to import from Europe. For VFR 1200F, China will be the potential market, said the company official, despite the copyright complication(China is quite known for copyright menace). Japan has reached the saturation point for bikes and hence the alternative areas shall be explored.

India has not come for appraisal for this VFR 1200F due to the price (may cost Rs20 lakh after whooping 100 %taxes). Honda Motorcycle is doing business in motorcycles by importing CB1000R and CBR1000RR (@Rs10 -13lakh). This will be added by VFR 1200F for brand building.

The world market seeks automatic transmission and hence Honda has immediately responded to it, said the company official. The features of these bikes shall resemble those of sports cars, he said.