uping their ante

M & M's uping their ante in the 2 wheeler segment. Good stuff. Hoping to see some good products from them soon.

And they got late to jump in two wheeler segment, I think....., Where other companies already taken nice lead....

More updates:

1. There have been some significant changes in the Mojo and the Stallio engines.
2. The Duro DZ now comes with the Start-Stop technology; meaning the engine would go into switch off mode if it has been idle for a specific amount of time, and would come alive once you give throttle. Should be handy in saving fuel in heavy traffic and traffic signals.

Thats a good thought in saving fuel, they have implemented their Hybrid Bolero / Scorpio technology in 2 wheelers..

what are the changes in mojo engine and styling ??

styling might be the same ..or ..possibly removing one silencer .. but i assume if there is major change in engine it might be twin

\lets just hope they get it right. And i do remember them claiming the mojo being developed in Italy, hope that some of the quality R&D quality trickle down to here too...

Cheers
Ride Safe
Krishna

Mahindra 2 Wheelers is trying very hard to make their mark on the market with fuel saving start-stop technologies being included in the most unlikeliest product (a Scooter!). Though Mahindra was the first Indian company to bring this feature to the Indian 4-wheeler space with the Scorpio Micro Hybrid, it was already available on some high end German cars at the time. This is the first time this system has been introduced in the 2-wheeler space in India.


The system itself is simplistic in implementation, it will be triggered by a motion sensor installed in the front wheel, as soon as the vehicle comes to a complete halt, the engine is switched off by an Intelligent Control Unit(ICU). When you need to move ahead, just twist the throttle, on that trigger, the Intelligent Control Unit will start the engine automatically (no need to press the starter) and the scooter will move ahead almost instantaneously. Quite a useful feature especially in crowded cities like Pune where there is a traffic signal practically every 300 meters and some of the busier ones have almost 4 minutes of stoppage time.



For the sceptics who might be thinking that this feature will definitely drain the battery unnecessarily, I must inform you that Mahindra is using patented technology to monitor battery health in real time and the stop-start system is deactivated by the ICU in case the battery health goes below a threshold value. And in any case, if you find the system not to your liking, you can also manually turn off the stop-start feature. No pricing details have been announced as yet for this new Duro DZ Micro Hybrid.

All said and done, I see no reason why this technology shouldn't be employed on other automatic scooters also since it is a very valid and effective way of saving fuel. Honda, the leading player in the Automatic Scooter segment in India, already sells the PCX125 with Start-Stop technologies in the UK, so ideally Honda should have been the one who should have introduced this nifty fuel saving feature, obviously, Mahindra has beaten them to this innovation.

The other highlights of the show were the 'new improved' 110cc horizontally laid single cylinder engine which will be used on the new Stallio and the 300cc Liquid Cooled EFI 4-Valve DOHC Unit of the Mojo. According to the RnD chief, apart from the mount points, everything including the oil flow, the valvetrain and the ignition system is different on this engine compared to the old Stallio engine. The multi-curve digital ignition technology is also incorporated to this engine for improved power delivery and fuel efficiency depending upon the riding style of the rider.



There were no changes on the Mojo on Display. And I can confirm for sure that I saw at least 2 of them, apart from a Mojo engine under test on the Dyno inside the RnD facility, so Mojo is not just on paper.



The bike still had those twin exhausts as shown during the unveiling and no styling changes have been made as yet to the prototypes. No details were revealed on the improvements carried out on the 300cc Mojo engine.



The only bit which was revealed that this engine platform can be extended downwards on the cc scale and we can expect a 250cc incarnation of the same engine platform in a different form on an entirely different motorcycle. Apart from this, reading between the lines, we can expect a moto-scooter type of product in the future. These 2 though are projects for a slightly longer term.



For the immediate future (FY13), there will be 3 motorcycles launched i.e. Stallio (before Diwali), Mojo(between Jan-March 2013) and a (125/150/160)cc bike apart from the 2 scooters, Duro DZ and Rodeo RZ already launched this year.

Finally coming to the boring bit(for most xBHPians), The RnD facility was quite well equipped in terms of the things they can test and improve on their indigenously developed vehicles.



The existing old Kinetic facility in Chinchwad, Pune has been used for this purpose. This facility has been upgraded by equipping it with state of the art testing and rapid prototyping equipment to test performance of almost all aspects of a 2-wheeler beginning with the testing of the engine itself for power and reliability on to testing the suspension, steering, chassis, NVH, Fuel efficiency, and finally the electricals, each of the components being subjected to the kind of abuse they would be subjected to in their usage as a daily use vehicle and stress testing them to the core for reliability in all aspects.

P.S.: I have used a Point and Shoot camera for this event so please don't expect quality of Pictures in the league of what MG manages.

Pretty neat pictures for a *senior noob*. And crisply detailed.

Cheers!
VJ

Horizontal Engine ? Any inputs on its advantages ?

Wonder if the Stallio would come with disc brakes at front. It could compete with Twister in the premium mileage-bike segment then.

And the price DOES need a reduction, because since the time the Stallio was first launched, its segment has seen lowering of prices and new launches in the form of Bajaj Discover 4G (attacking in mileage front) and the Suzuki Hayate (attacking in performance front).

Sad to see the Mojo and the higher capacity (mainstream segment) bike pushed to next year. While the 100-110cc bikes are the bringers of volume, the brand (unless its called Hero) is always established by the mainstream performance city bikes. People buy Discover as the commuter cousin of Pulsar, and people buy Star City as commuter cousin of Apache.

I think companies like Suzuki and TVS in India have a thing or two to learn from mahindra, the kind of commitment these people are showing in spite of initial failures is commendable.

I didn't exactly understand what does the word 'hybrid' stand for in the scooters name?
What is the purpose of the flat cylinder?

Good to know that Mahindra is stepping the gas in two wheelers too. It looks like Mahindra wants to approach the market from both premium and commuter ends. It will bring in more competetion and more competition means better products from all manufacturers.

Good Times ahead for Indian customer.

even i was thinking the same thing, the term-"hybrid" is used in a misleading way. a hybrid vehicle generally uses two types of power to propel the vehicle and these two types of power are generally normal fuel (petrol of deisel) and electricity.

the horizontally laid block piston has some form of advantage over vertical ones in smaller displacement engines.

'Micro Hybrid' is M&M speak for 'Stop-Start technology'. They have been using the same terminology on Scorpio and Bolero since 2008.

As for the advantages of a horizontally laid engine, there should be advantages (which I am not aware of) since the same arrangement is being used on Hero Splendor (Plus/Pro/NXG) and Passion (Pro/Plus), Honda Cub for ages now.