Thread: Yamaha YZF-R15

YAMAHA Motor Japan, has drawn up a apex plan for turnaround of its Indian subsidiary, Yamaha Motor India (YMI). It is a comprehensive plan including opening of a third manufacturing plant in Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh state to add to its already existent plant there and another in Faridabad in Haryana state, expansion of product portfolio and dealer, service and finance arm network. The third plant to be opened at Surajpur will make high end bikes proposed by YMI, besides catering to a new product portfolio for the Indian market volume segments of 100 125cc bikes and gearless scooters.

We are the world's largest gearless scooter maker. We have a wide range starting from 50cc to 500cc. We are studying the market," said Sanjay Tripathi, YMl's head of product and strategy. Eyeing 10 per cent of the growing high end motorcycle market in India that presently takes up 20 per cent market share of the burgeoning motorcy¬cle market in India, YMI has launched FZ bike in the 150cc+ category to add to its MT01, YZF-R1 and YZF-R15.

"India will be the number one thrust market for Yamaha Motor which is aiming for a turnaround following its success in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia," said YMl's national business head Pankaj Dubey. YMI is now looking at a serious image makeover and is targeting a sale of more than half a million bikes in 2009. And is tar geting two lakh unit sales by the end of this year, according to Dubey. The company. which currently has a market share of 2.6 per cent, has laid out plans for gaining a market share of 10 per cent by 20W says Dubey.



Hero charging stations for electric bikes HERO Electric unveiled its first charging station for all electric 2-wheelers in New Delhi in September. The company plans to launch 2000 charging stations across India besides opening 12 more charging stations in Delhi by the end of this year. In what the company claims to be a breakthrough innovation, the new charging technology enables commuters to charge their vehicles while on the move at the company installed charging stations in conjunction with garage owners and termed as Hero Electric PGOs (Preferred Garage Owners), aeross Delhi. The expansion envisages setting up of charging stations in parking lots, malls, schools and such throughout the country to develop transportation infrastructure to support electric vehicles, which would go up to 10,000 in the next three years.

The charging stations (PGOs) will have electronic timers along with DC regulated power supply which will allow the electric 2¬wheeler to charge in multiples of 1 and 2 hours and the consumer will be charged an hour's charge. Rs 10 for 2 hours and so on. The user can run the vehicle for approximately 10-20km on an hour of charge depending on the condition of the battery.