In a bid to cater to the growing demand for Royal Enfield motorcycles, parent company Eicher Motors intends to invest over Rs 1,000 crore in FY24. Royal Enfield posted its highest ever sales of 8,34,895 motorcycles in FY23, up 38.4 percent from 6,02,268 units in FY22. During the year, Royal Enfield also crossed the 1 lakh export shipments milestone for the first time. Siddhartha Lal, MD of Eicher Motors said he is upbeat about RE’s future, with the international markets hitting an inflection point by crossing 1 lakh units.
Royal Enfield’s electrification plan
Lal says while the shift towards electric vehicles is gathering pace, the internal combustion engine is here to stay for the next decade at least. There is strong traction for EVs for short-distance city commutes, but for long distances, internal combustion engines will continue to remain at the core till the time-weight and cost equation remains high.
On Royal Enfield's own EV plans, Lal said the company is working day and night on EVs, "We are not chilling, there is a crazy amount of pace on EV development. Our process does take more time since our testing and validation process is better than the best in the world and that is where we take more time and effort.”
Given the rapid change of pace on the electrification front – Royal Enfield’s new product development process is agile, assured Lal, citing that if certain technologies like batteries or motors evolve faster, those components can be upgraded in a shorter span of time.
New Royal Enfields in the offing
On the mainstream two-wheeler front, the company says the newly launched Hunter 350 has already crossed the 1 lakh sales milestone and a majority of the buyers were non-Royal Enfield intenders. To build the momentum further, the company will be relying on its J platform to come out with a slew of new offerings in the coming year.
"Lot of new motorcycles are coming," says R Govindarajan, CEO, Royal Enfield, "We also have a very well thought through line-up in the coming year. We will continue to develop our products and are very focused on what customers are looking for – pure motorcycle experience. Hence we offer apparels, accessories and the focus has always been on the motorcycling experience and community building."
Azaman Chothia
Vishal Venugopal
