Harley Davidson turns Desi: Two Sportster® models to be made in India plant

Harley Davidson turns Desi and the company has made a statement that two bike models will be assembled next year at the plant that has been proposed in India. The plant is proposed to be in Bawal in the state of Haryana. The predicted cost of the bike is between Rs. 5.5 and 6.5 lakhs.

This move to adopt a CKD model by Harley is alleged to be in place to counter the high import duties the manufacturer has to pay for bringing fully-assembled motorcycles into India. Following the CKD model will reduce the import duties considerably, resulting in a lesser price tag on the bike. Approximately, a reduction of 25% is expected on the prices of the India-assembled motorcycles.

Harley Davidson Sportster® Iron-883 and SuperLow are the Harley models that will be manufactured at Haryana. Of these, SuperLow will be priced lower that 883 and both the bikes will be available with the 5 existing dealers of Harley in India. Additional dealers may be announced next year. The Harley Davidson market in India comprises of 12 motorcycle models with dealers scattered over Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chandigarh.

The India-based Harley plant will be the 2nd plant of the company outside of US, the first being its Brazil plant. No official statements have been made on the size of the investment that the company plans to make on the Indian venture. But sources say that it is a 70,000 sq. foot facility that will assemble close to 200 bikes.

Currently, Harley Davidson bikes are imported into India as fully assembled vehicles. Once the plant is functional, Harley plans to send automobile parts manufactured in its US plant to India as knock-down kits. These kits will be assembled by the industry workers in the Indian plant. However, for now Harley plans this approach for only the 883 and SuperLow model motorcycles. The remaining motorcycles will continue by BUX itself.

For CKD system, the import duty charged is 60% of the price of the vehicle, while for a fully assembled vehicle it is close to 110%. Harley believes that given the strong response obtained by the launch of the bike in India, CKD is the way to go to improve sales of the bike. It can be safely assumed that the price reduction that CKD will bring on Harley Davidson motorcycles can turn the Indian crowd more in favor of taking the Elvis of all motorcycles home.

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