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TVS-Suzuki to launch indigenous 4-stroke bike in September

M. Ramesh

HOSUR, July 12

TVS-Suzuki intends to launch its indigenously developed 4-stroke motorbike in September. The 110 cc vehicle, named Victor, is the first motorbike to be developed by the company on its own, without technology from its partner, Suzuki.

The first Victor was rolled out of the assembly line here on Thursday. The Managing Director of TVS-Suzuki, Mr Venu Srinivasan, rode the first Victor off the assembly line and onto a platform, cheered by thousands of employees.

Although the price of the vehicle is yet to be decided upon, officials indicated that it could be anywhere between Rs 40,000 and Rs 46,000.

TVS-Suzuki had been working on developing this vehicle over the last 18-odd months, spending Rs 70 crore on the project. The company had to develop the vehicle in-house, because the Japanese collaborator does not have a model in the 100-110 cc range.

Speaking at a press conference just before the first vehicle roll-out, Mr Venu Srinivasan said that with the launch of this vehicle, the company hoped to regain the 18 per cent market share it had in the motorcycles segment, the year before last. (Last year, this share dropped to 14 per cent, and the company had to push sales of its 2-stroke motorcycles with discounts, which cost the company Rs 16 crore.)

Mr Srinivasan said that he expected that the two stroke motorcycles would, in about three years time, turn into niche products and four stroke vehicles would rule the market.

Mr Vinay Harne, Vice-President, R&D, said that two independent technical research bodies -- AVL List GmbH of Austria and Leyland Technical Centre of UK -- had assessed the vehicle on various parameters of performance, and had given very high marks.

TVS-Suzuki's other four-stroke vehicle, the 150 cc Fiero, was also developed with limited support from Suzuki. If two stroke vehicles would only be niche products and the four stroke motorcycles have been developed by the company almost in-house, does it mean that Suzuki has no role as a technology supplier? The company's President, Mr C.P. Raman, said that Suzuki's help would still be needed for higher range of vehicles such as 250 cc and above. He, however said, that there was no plan on the drawing b oard for introducing those vehicles.

The company plans to produce 15,000 Victors per month, from September onwards, Mr Venu Srinivasan said.

One unique feature of the Victor is the `Dual Mode Digital Ignition', developed by the company in-house and in use in India for the first time. This technology features a device which senses the extent to which the throttle is open and adjusts the ign ition timing accordingly, as against in the other vehicles, where either the ignition timing is independent of the throttle or is only adjusted to the speed of the vehicle.

In response to a question, Mr Vinay Harne said that this feature, which costs nothing additionally, would be introduced into all the motorcycles manufactured by TVS-Suzuki.

Picture: The Managing Director of TVS Suzuki, Mr Venu Srinivasan, at the roll-out of TVS Victor at its plant in Hosur on Thursday.

Picture by G.R.N. Somashekhar