Considering that TVS’ Jupiter is India’s second-highest-selling scooter – and that its Wego and Scooty are hugely popular as well – it is sufficient to say that scooters are important to the Hosur-based two-wheeler manufacturer. But, thus far, TVS is one of the few large scooter manufacturers in India who has no product above the 110cc mark. However, spy images sent to us by our reader Adithyan G.R show that the company is currently testing a brand-new scooter and it could very well come with a larger engine.
As some web reports suggest, this scooter does seem to follow the design language displayed by the funky Graphite concept showcased at the 2014 Auto Expo. While not quite as angular and edgy, the test mule is wrapped in aggressive bodywork, with a front apron that reminds of the Yamaha Ray, Honda Dio and the upcoming Honda Grazia. The rear section has a sharp, swept-back look and features dual floating grab rails. The exhaust is quite large, but features an interesting shark-nose-style design.
Residing under a substantial front fender is what appears to be a 12-inch alloy wheel held in place by conventional suspension forks. This is a setup favoured by both, the Wego and the Jupiter, but the interesting thing here in the spied model is the braking system. From what we can tell, the test scooter doesn’t seem to be wearing a front disc brake. While a disc brake may be offered as an optional extra, like with the Jupiter, it is telling on what kind of engine this scooter will come with.
Some reports suggest that this new scooter will get a brand-new 150cc engine, but we think otherwise. For starters, the Graphite scooter shown at the Expo packed very concept-like features, including an AMT gearbox with paddleshifters, LED console, clip-on handlebars and dual-channel ABS. Most of these features are more of a showcase of technology possibilities rather than sure-shot items for production, and the same applies to the 150cc engine.
Secondly, the 150cc scooter segment in India is still in very nascent stages, with the Aprilia SR150 and Vespa being the only players in a rather low-volume game. It would make more sense to see TVS attack the 125cc space where the Suzuki Access and Honda Activa 125 have already seen good success.
So, why aren’t we calling this upcoming scooter the Graphite just yet? History has shown that TVS concept vehicles do a good job of indicating what the final product will look like, but the production vehicles don’t usually bear the same name. The Draken concept was a preview of the RTR 200 and we have reason to believe that the Akula concept from 2016 will birth a production bike named the Apache RR 310S that should be launched in the second-half of November. Similarly, the production version of this test mule may fit under one of TVS’ existing scooter families, or spawn a new one.
Expect to see more at the 2018 Auto Expo.
Azaman Chothia
Ved Janve
Dinshaw Magol
