Royal Enfield has done very well in the past quarter. The British/Indian company recorded an increase of more than 20 percent compared to 2022, but that was not the only news announced last week. Enfield CEO Siddhartha Lal made an important announcement about the EV project.
On August 3, 2023, Royal Enfield’s parent company, Eicher Motors, announced its financial results for the first quarter of its financial year 2023-2024, covering the quarter from April through June 2023.
Eicher reported its highest-ever quarterly revenue, which it says was largely due to extremely strong sales of Royal Enfield motorcycles. In total, Enfield posted sales of 225,368 bicycles during the quarter, representing a 21.1 percent year-over-year increase from the 186,032 bicycles it currently sold in 2022.
While that’s good news for Enfield and Eicher, this quarterly financial report was the reason Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director of Royal Enfield, addressed the media after the release, where he made a major announcement about Enfield’s EV project.
Because engine manufacturers who traditionally make combustion engines and choose to pursue electrification will have to make certain decisions. Based on the steps taken by manufacturers such as Bajaj, TVS and Harley-Davidson, one of the most important decisions seems to be whether to establish the EV side as a separate entity separate from the internal combustion engines.
It is this point that drew attention to Lal, regarding how Royal Enfield plans to proceed. “EV is at the core of Eicher Motors and Royal Enfield. Unless something drastic changes, EV will remain within the range of Royal Enfield and Eicher Motors,” Lal told the Indian press.
“We do explore all options, we look at what others are doing, but we are not trend followers. You also have to think about the core business – is it a sunny business? When you start focusing on something new, you dilute yourself further. EV will be the future growth engine for Eicher Motors and Royal Enfield, and it will remain within Eicher Motors – there is no action or attempt to change that,” Lal continued.
That’s not all he had to say about the development of Enfield’s first electric motorcycle, however. “We’re about two years away from the product coming to market. We’re working super hard on it. We’re riding our prototypes; we still have time.”
“We don’t want to bring half-baked things to market, our idea is to be totally disruptive. It’s not about going head-to-head with the competition; we’re working on a completely different paradigm in EVs. It takes time to get something great development,” he said.
Based on the ruling, we can conclude that the electric Enfield will be put on the market sometime in 2025. Details have not been made public this early in the development, but it may be worth remembering that Enfield parent company Eicher Motors bought an equity stake in Spanish electric motor start-up Stark Future in late 2022.
That’s the company responsible for the Stark Varg electric dirt bike that set several hearts ablaze when it first went on sale in January 2022. At launch, a total of 1,000 units were sold in just 24 hours. Although we will of course have to wait until they are revealed, we dare to say that the first Enfield EV will be the result of a new collaboration with those Spaniards.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.