The much awaited bikes from the BMW Motorrad and TVS Motor tie-up will be unveiled in October 2015 at the Intermot Motorcycle Show in Cologne, Germany. Sales will start only in 2016.
When BMW and TVS announced their tie-up late last year, the whole world was excited and looking forward to affordable bikes from the German firm. There is still a long time before the bikes go on sale as the company will debut the new sub-500cc bikes at the 2015 Intermot Motorcycle Show which will take place in the first half of October next year. While both BMW and TVS remain mum on the products, we are aware that a 350cc Enduro and a 500cc Roadster are planned as initial offerings from the Indo-German JV. The 350cc Enduro will draw styling inspiration from the G650X while the 500cc Roadster will be similar to the R1200R in appearance.
However, that’s not all, with the supersport category also witnessing high demand, BMW and TVS are also working on a full faired sports bike which is likely to draw design inspiration from the mother of all litre class bikes, the S1000RR. With three hot products in the sub 500cc segment, BMW is sure to give KTM a run for its money in the global market while TVS will give Bajaj Auto a tough fight in the domestic market. BMW doesn’t have immediate plans to enter in India so the BMW badged bikes won’t be available to us although we can get the TVS version which will be slightly lower on performance but high on the value for money quotient.
So how different is TVS-BMW from Bajaj-KTM? The strategy is the same, KTM and BMW do the design and engineering and Bajaj and TVS do the sourcing and production respectively. Thus the R&D expertise of the Europeans coupled with the low cost production of the Indians results in a well priced but extremely well engineered motorcycle. The big difference between Bajaj-KTM and TVS-BMW is, Bajaj owns almost half of KTM while there is no cross-holding involved in the TVS-BMW tie-up. Bajaj will make up to 800cc bikes for KTM while TVS is restricted to the 200-500cc displacement range.
