At the recent reveal event of the Honda Shine 100 DX and Honda CB125 Hornet, we got to interact with Tsutsumu Otani, managing director, president & CEO of HMSI, on the company’s plans and prospects for India. You can read the full interview in the August issue of Autocar India, but one of the interesting points discussed was that Honda is looking into innovative new technologies for its bikes in India.
- E-Clutch technology automates the usage of the clutch
- Rider still has to change gears
- E-Clutch is currently available on Honda’s 650cc 4-cyl bikes
Honda plans on a cost-effective E-Clutch
An automated clutch technology
One of the questions we asked was whether Honda believes there was merit in introducing its E-Clutch technology to smaller bikes that are sold in India. To this, Otani responded that Honda is considering a more affordable technology that would work along similar lines for some bikes in India.
E-Clutch is a technology that Honda debuted on its 650cc four-cylinder bikes a couple of years ago. Available on both the Honda CBR650 and CBR650R in India, this technology essentially automates the usage of the clutch. Riders still need to manually change gears, but they can now do so without using the clutch, and this applies even when coming to a complete halt or setting off from a standstill.
Multiple manufacturers worldwide are working on different variations of automatic technologies, and Honda itself has the fully automatic DCT system as well as the E-Clutch. The nice thing about the latter is that riders can still control the clutch if they wish to, which means this system offers a unique blend of convenience while retaining the purist riding experience.
Not E-Clutch, but something similar
The technology as is would be too expensive for India
Otani explained to us that, as it is, E-Clutch is too expensive a technology to be used on the cost-sensitive motorcycles sold in India. “Not particularly the E-Clutch, but this type of convenience is maybe something that Indian customers will appreciate. So, this is also something under consideration – not the E-Clutch, but something more reasonable in terms of cost.”
At the moment, there are no locally manufactured motorcycles on sale in India with automatic gearboxes or automated clutches.
Azaman Chothia
Vishal Venugopal
