Did it ever occur to you that the bike pictured above is not the 250? But EBR's current trackbike?

Bike shown in the pic is ebr 1190,Their flagship model

I am sure Hero would come out probably with 1 250cc bike and have like 20 variants of it for the next 15 or so years with different lousy stickering work.

Some names i can guess are DOUBLE AMBITION,DOUBLE AMBITION PLUS,SUPER GLAMOUR,SUPER GLAMOUR PRO etc...

High time Hero came out with something now. The market has already began to experience so much more with KTM, Bajaj, Honda, & chances to see a new Yamaha (200-250cc segment ) too..
It's stay or give up like situation for Hero Motocorp. No offense though.

We are not spoiled for choices, but we will be confused a lot.
Man, you are not in touch with the latest development in Hero moto corp. Gone are the days when sticker upgrades were done. Now hero is most active in changing and bringing models. And for your information passion is different from passion pro and passion pro is different from passion x pro. If you do not know then PM me and i will let you know the differences. Posting the differences will be OT. So please think before posting. No use thinking about old things as it has changed and hero is on a new journey to bring out new products.

that was HERO HONDA not HERO..

How is it any different? Honda was only supplying their old and outdated tech to Hero who marketed the bikes with stickers and "+" to keep them "fresh looking" every year. You cannot blame the tree just because your fruit seller sold you artificially coloured not so ripe mangoes

Bad example at the wrong place.
In your example tree has no relation between the fruit seller and it.
But hero and honda had a relation. Hero was not the owner of hero honda and honda was not supplying only the tech. But hero and honda both have 26% share each and rest shares are owned by other investors.So what honda is also an owner but it sold technology to hero and also even after hero buying the technology from honda.honda still was taking 6% royalty on each bike sold, which comes to around 25% after tax payment. Also according to agreement hero cannot export anywhere except sri lanka. Also hero couldn't invest in R&D on its own because honda had equal share in the partnership and thus it must be consulted and honda didn't allow hero to do R&D on its own. After Honda entered hero was not supplied with technology and it couldn't invest in R&D due to agreement. So hero had to separate from honda to grow more.
The reasons for HERO separating from HONDA are:-
1.Honda was restricting Hero to supply technology and also investing in R&D.
2. Even though hero had bought the technology paying very high price but still honda was taking 6% on every bike which is absolutely ridiculous as honda was a partner but still it was acting as a outsider company.
3. Honda had an intension that HERO must merge its components industry with Honda which will give honda an upper hand. Why would hero merge the components business which it has built over so many years and the quality that Hero is popular is because of its own effort as most products are manufactured in-house rather than getting from outside vendors as with other companies.

Hero group is one of the largest companies which produces in house many things like Chassis (ZF Hero Chassis Systems), Sheet metals for body(hero motors), Castings(mujal kiru and sunbeam), brake components, chains gears(hero motors), and key sets and instruments(salander or SLD), e.t.c.
Hero group customers includes many companies like General motors,Nissan, BMW, and many.
The hero group is spread over four munjal families.
For a company that is spread across many branches and producing own components that too almost 50% of it, they are an expertise of manufacturing.
What they lacked was technology which honda provided. But as the market progressed hero realized that it has to get free of the bond and thus is now embarking on a new journey to produce more better bikes.
Hero has already told that it will launch its first bike in 2013 that too a 250 cc sports bike.
So instead of giving time, we are bashing it as if building a new bike from grounds up is like building sand castle.
This time hero will not buy technology but its engineers are working with EBR engineers and will develop a new bike.
For the links:-
The munjal families and there business:-http://www.heromotors.com/index.php?...d=70&Itemid=46
There products and there customers:-

You can see they have customers like:-
GM,MARUTI SUZUKI,NISSAN,TOYOTA AND HONDA.
There casting section:-
http://www.sunbeamauto.com/index.htm- you can see there customers from here.

Hero is the only company which manufactures own shock absorber and they are damn best. Even honda bikes use them and you can see MSL- munjal showa limited on them.
Only other company to use own shock was escort yamaha, but now they are not escorts.
Munjal is hero group and showa you all must be knowing is the Italian company which supplies shocks to DUCATI and others.
Link:-

There customers:-


Do you not think that a company which manufactures so many products and has clients like these wouldn't have invested in R&D if it was required. But they were hands tied by there joint venture and now are ready to launch new bikes.

Since they already have manufacturing expertise, and produce 50% of components in-house once the 250 cc is conceptualized, it will not take long for hero to manufacture.

The cause of the split are:-


So my point is wait for another year and see. For other companies they have to search for vendors to produce components once the design is finalized but for hero manufacturing is not a constraint.

^Typical Japanese mentality and the reason behind Honda's success.
Whether its the cub, the 'American dream' or the decline of 2 strokes Honda has been cunning and ruthless in their business.

14.4 bhp hunk and xtreme and 13.3 bhp unicorn, 14 bhp fz, 14 bhp dazler, gs150r, etc are based on latest technologically advanced engines.....righ...?????

Nice try, but Honda didn't sell technology to Hero, they LICENSED it to Hero so that they can build bikes using it. In other words, Hero bought the copy rights with a rider that they will pay royalty on every bike sold using Honda's technology.

Regarding Honda restricting Hero from doing exports & R&D, I guess that was part of initial agreement, obviously no one would want you to compete with them using their own technology, that would be suicide. If Hero wanted to do R&D, they were free to do so under a different name (a dedicated subsidary to Hero group, not connected with Hero Honda), but not with Hero Honda, coz Hero Honda gets technology from Honda, apparently Honda wants to protect their IPR.

So, let's not make a fuss out of it, Hero got a fair deal, what were they before deal with Honda? bicylce makers, isn't it? They are where they are today, due to reliable tech they got from Honda & of course you have to give them credit for the way they have scaled up operations (service & spares).

There is another particular reason for the success of japs :

That can be either be called fanboyism or sometimes foolishness.

For example, I think Ignitor is either better or equal to Stunner. But many customers in India will say, Stunner is Honda so its better. there ends their reasons.

Another is there are guys believing Fazor is a better tourer than Karizma or 220. There are many such examples.

When It comes to Yamaha, we have to accept that quality on R15 is exemplary. But I cannot agree that that is the case with FZ 16. usually people spends in multiple folds to maintain and fuel this 14PS bike.

Once a friend said me "Ye Yamaha Ka gadi ... yes FZ 16. Its really powerful". I asked, what makes you think so "look at its tyres and size, its poweful than Karizma and Pulsar" and obviously lot of bla bla.

Unicorn, I cannot find a reason to run after it. And thats a very old product, Even CBR 150 is not so well built, still a Honda.

It looks like Honda can sell anything in India.

Some fan boys of these japs buys Dukes from Bajaj saying that this is not your shitty pulsar this is Austrian.

[All above stuff from real life experience. Anybody can differ as these are just my experience.]


I used to say that Hero Honda is a Vinyl manufacturing company.
And even said They will next launch Impulse Pro with a famous 16.5 HP motor.

But I still believe, once they learn how the motor is made, they will bounce back. So will do TVS.


Still you will find some guys crying:
"Hero got it from Eric Buell, Bajaj got it from KTM, TVS got it BMW, Indian companies are uselss, they are just producing crazy fan boys!" I will buy my next bike from Honda or Yamaha only, You know they are of highest quality. Rest are just you know, sh*t.

[No offense intended against our Yamaha/Honda owners. These are about another crop they are not true riders like us but just fan boys/ self assumed brand ambassadors ]

I didn't anywhere say they got a bad deal. My point was we always praise honda for the quality of hero honda. But it is not honda but hero which maintains quality as it has one of the largest production house and the parts are manufactured by them. I have a technology but it doesn't mean that once i give you the technology you will maintain the same quality as i want. Quality doesn't comes along with technology but also how the product is manufactured. I am a mechanical engineer and i know what it takes to manufacture a bike which have so many individual components.
And regarding honda licensing there technology, was honda doing charity. Hero was un loading heaps of money to honda. Also honda was a partner in hero honda and thus has to contribute. You cannot just be equal partner in which one company manufactures and other just sits. So it has to do something which it did by supplying technology. And regarding technology honda provided with royalty agreement but it wanted to increase the royalty for bikes like splendor which have technology that honda gave 25 years ago.

Regarding doing there own R&D under different name according to agreement they cannot use the new technology under hero honda brand, so what is the use of spending heaps of money on R&D when you cannot use it. They also cannot build another brand, as building a brand and trust takes years.
I didn't make a fuss, but i posted because somebody wanted to know what was the difference between hero honda and present hero.
Not only they have scaled up the operation but they are one of the largest manufacturing groups. Even honda takes spares from hero.
Hero separated from honda because of honda's selfish intension like:-
1. Even though they have equal share in the JV but they were reluctant to share technology even after getting heaps of money.
2.They increased there royalty to 6% which comes to 25% after tax which is ridiculous because bikes like splendor has 25 year old technology. If only by licensing the technology honda will take 25% of share then what will other share holders and hero get while hero does all manufacturing and marketing and service.
3. Honda wanted to merge the hero spares division with its own fully owned subsidiary which clearly is in comprehensive. Why would hero let its own company which supplies spares to honda,maruti,toyota,GM e.t.c merge with honda. This is clearly an act of honda which was an attempt to capture the Indian market. I mean to say why would hero which has been the forefront of quality merge its spare with Honda.

The thing is that honda is quite cunning, but we have made them hero. Anything Honda does is like excellent and we do not think about the other side of coin. Honda is like god, and anything it does it is not to be blamed.
The real reason behind there JV was that they couldn't enter Indian market on there own, but they wanted someone with whom they could enter. But they never helped the Indian market by supplying technology to hero but they were waiting for the right time to enter Indian market.
Well said but little by the side rather than on the point.
It is not in automobiles but in everything. We Indians have always weakness to foreign brands. Anything that is stamped imported is good while the same quality products is available for cheaper price in india.
Not only that, even you see people having foreign breed of dogs and they take proper care of it, but outside there home a street dog will be sitting without food and still waging its tail. They do not have the heart to give it a piece of bread but there imported dog(literally) will be having 3 course meal.
Same is the condition of indian brands. They do not have any respect from users.
And regarding stunner and ignitor you are right, ignitor is much better as i have road test it but people still think stunner is better as it has honda tag attached. Even Honda uses components made by hero but still they think honda is better.
Recently bought a stunner for my cousin brother, while i was for ignitor. Since he is a typical boy who goes by brand name rather than actually seeing the product he bought it. My joy runs better than it. While it may have the initial grunt which is obvious as it is 125 cc but my 12 year old joy is better in many aspect like smoothness, engine feeling relaxed at higher rpms e.t.c.
I didn't compare with my extreme as it is not fair.
Similarly we praise unicorn, which is old but what about extreme and hunk, which share same engine but has more power. Not only power but also they lays down the power at much aggressively and return also good mileage. My extreme is returning 55 in city and 60+ on NH. There is no better way to put it.
My joy is in twelve years and still runs better than new bikes.
Even bajaj did it with P200 NS. Bajaj has some excellent bikes like 4S champion, caliber 115, p 200, p 220,200 ns e.t.c. But most will refer japanese bikes are better.
One evening i was standing at my friends shop and a customer came. My joy was standing and he was talking with someone. Looking at my joy he said that my brother bought a bike but he didn't like hero bikes and instead went for honda shine. Then he turned toward me and asked whether hero has launched a new bike named joy, as my bike was that day washed and waxed and looking like new. I just smiled and said it is 12 years old and has run 3.2 lacs. Then he asked was is re-painted but i said no it was the factory color which it is and then you have to see his face, because infront of me he had pointed to my bike and told his friend about the previous comment and now he got to know about hero.
My point is not bashing Japanese company, but the mentality that Indian companies are worthless.Look at bajaj and hero, they are now quality house. Although bajaj has a little quality issue but they are still almost there. Hero as you already know have the best quality in bikes.
We have become fan boys of japanese company and anything they do it is better. But Indian companies best effort are like watershed to us.
LET US BE PROUD OF INDIAN COMPANIES AS THEY ARE FIGHTING WITH FOREIGN COMPANIES AND LETS SUPPORT THEM INSTEAD OF BASHING THEM.
COMPANIES LIKE BAJAJ, TVS, HERO ARE FIGHTING COMPANIES LIKE KAWASAKI,HONDA AND SUZUKI, WHO WERE ONES THERE PARTNER. BUT WE ARE SENSELESSLY SUPPORTING JAPANESE COMPANIES AND NOT LETTING INDIAN COMPANIES TO GROW. THE NEWS ARTICLE IS ABOUT HERO LAUNCHING NEW BIKE AND INSTEAD SOMEONE COMES WITH HOW THEY ARE DIFFERENT FROM HERO HONDA. DO THEY NOT READ THE NEWS ABOUT LATEST DEVELOPMENT BY HERO. EVEN XBHP HAS MANY ARTICLES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENT BY HERO. BUT NO, WE ARE OBSESSED WITH PAST THAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING AT THE PRESENT.

And it must be quite clear that hero is not a private limited company but a corporation which has many shareholders. Hero is a company which sponsors many sports,even many schools and colleges, but what do the Japanese company help India. They are only here to make money as much as they can. Indian companies sponsors many development work but we never praise them.

I agree.
Japanese people have a very low level perception of us Indians. Honda used to think we are not worthy of big bikes and hence used to sell just the Unicorn first. Kawasaki is definitely not interested in Indian market. This is not what I think, but collected from various people who work with Japanese companies.

I will be very happy when our Indian bike stands up to the Japanese bikes. We have high hopes from Hero, Bajaj and TVS!

Ah!!! Guys, guys, guys whoa!!! stop discussing; I'm having goose bumps & on the verge of exhibiting my patriotism by trading CBR 250R to Pulsar 200 NS
At this rate, I'll have to open a thread "Please help choose a Made in India" motorcycle