When the news first broke, it was said that BMW Motorrad is planning to bring in its motorcycles to India via the CKD route. The source seemed credible and we assumed it would be true as it made good business sense as well. This would have enabled them to price their motorcycles more competitively. Currently BMW motorcycle prices in India are at least double of what their competitors are charging. Considering that we already pay a premium for these motorcycles, the BMW motorcycle prices are anything but reasonable. Now as with all news we do a verification before posting and the result of that came in. We got a reply from BMW stating that they have no plans to start a CKD operation in India at their Chennai plant for their motorcycle range.
Now BMW will definitely have to go the CKD route in the near future. And we say definitely because India is not a market that any manufacturer wants to miss out on and at the current prices that motorcycles from BMW sell for, not many would even consider it regardless of how good they are. There are two sides to this. The first side is that essentially the cars and bikes are two different businesses for BMW. One is BMW Motorrad and the other is BMW cars. These being different entities brings us to the next point. BMW Motorrad is the entity that has joined hands with TVS to develop new bikes. Like we had analyzed before it makes logical sense to see the bikes being assembled at the TVS facility. Surely that is the direction to expect news from. Check out the TVS-BMW bike that is under development. This 300-500 cc motorcycle is expected late this year or at the Auto Expo 2016.
