Do you plan on buying a new BMW in the next few years? If so, your bike’s gearbox could be designed and built in India.
Business Standard Motoring reports the India’s Hero Motors has inked a deal to provide transmissions to the German motorcycle giant for five to eight years.
Big deal, you say, who cares what parts they put on their bikes over in India? Well, Hero will provide transmissions for all BMW bikes sold in India, but they’ll also be building transmissions for the international market. In other words, if you buy a GS in a few years, your German engineering may actually be from Asia.
Hero is best known for their co-operation with Japanese motorcycle giant Honda, but with that partnership breaking up, you can bet they’re happy to land the deal with BMW.
Surprisingly, this isn’t Hero’s first time working with BMW – they co-operated on a single-cylinder mid-sized motorcycle in the 1990s, but that was only for the Indian market. Now, the whole world will get a chance to evaluate Hero’s work.
That’s good news. I hope their togetherness results into a cool BMW bike.
I will say that if my R1200R had major mechanical components made outside of Germany, I wouldn’t have been willing to pay the premium price BMW charge for it.
I’m aware that Rotax makes hardware for their F series, and some G series engines are made in China. Those bikes are lower priced, so maybe that’s ok. Over 12K though, and no thanks. At least Rotax engines are still Austrian (Canadian).
Engines from China, gearboxes from India,
Whats next???
electrics from Lucas (UK) Prince of Darkness!!!!
Yes BMW is doomed, their sales will go down the drain …. LOL