Honda CBR150R – will it come to India..

Well, to be honest the correct answer to it is I don’t know.. What this post is about is logical reasoning from my limited understanding of the Indian two wheeler scene.

The company: Honda motorcycles and scooters India..
The product: the recently unveiled iteration of the cbr150r..

The bike looks like a cosmetic make over of the old cbr… And mind you cosmetic that kicks the r15 in its nuts kind of fantastic looks. CBRish side panels, VFRish front headlamp = one kick ass looking bike.

If it comes to India it would be an awesome competition to the zmr and the r15.. And probably the Mojo too…

Why it should come to India..
Much bigger a market, makes a neat addition tp HMSIs arsenal. Kicks the zmr and yet sticks to the low cubic capacity range. It would up the ante for TVS and BAJAJ… Who knows, we might just see a nice battle of sorts between Honda and Yamaha here too!

Why it might NOT come to India..
1. Honda is a stubborn company that believes it knows what India wants, but favors more on its ability to judge what India deserves (or what they think we deserve)
A proof of that is the same iteration of unicorn being repeated without any significant change to its mill. You see Honda is not a company that will play with 20cc upgrades.. The same iteration of Scooters only reinforces it.
So why doesn’t India deserve the cbr…
* Too high rev a engine for Indian roads
* Too high compression a engine for Indian fuels.. Ever wondered why activa, dio, unicorn, shine and probably other Honda engines sport a magical constant compression ratio of 9.1:1?
* The small(purely as a %) money equipped chunk in India care a rats arse about how the bike performs. We will buy anything that looks good. Even if it meant its performance not upto its looks.

2. Every auto enthusiast will tell you that a bigger, cheaper Honda is being prepared. Infact if my source of info is correct, a substantial three figured number of bikes has already been assembled in the gurgaon facility. The specs are not difficult to guess. Its a single cylinder again, as we don’t need/deserve a multi cylindered bike yet. Will be an extension to the commuterish based bikes..(is that why Honda tags all its bike with CB names?)
Now this will probably be a looker too.. considering that the bike has been under the magic knife for about a couple of years… Much lesser than that the cbr150R has been… But yeah it exactly won’t be as good a performer in the ninja league. A probable single digit difference in its torque range. The difference in the torque would be as much compensated with 15k times of its price. So if its 9ps slower.. Its price would be 9x15k cheaper than ninja.. Now do your math and let me know how many birds and eggs can Honda kill with this? And how many years of longevity does it get with this?

Why not both the bikes..
* the 150 would eat into the tad bit higher priced and higher margin indigenous bigger Honda’s share.. After all looks sell in India!

Still think 150 makes sense for this market/Honda…. Well best of luck…!

RIP Mojo, ZMR, Bajaj and TVS big bike plans.. And possible RIP The smaller duke.. (if it remains 125)