Six years after entering the two wheeler market by buying out Kinetic Motor Company, Mahindra will launch its first completely self-developed scooter this year. The scooter and the engine have been developed in-house by Mahindra’s Pune based R&D team.
?This will be our sixth scooter model and the first to be fully-developed by us. Till now we were using Kinetic platforms,? said Pawan Goenka, executive director for Mahindra’s Automotive & Farm Equipment business told FE, while adding that it will also launch its fourth bike ? the 150cc Mojo, this year.
Mahindra, which in a major restructuring integrated its loss-making truck and two wheeler arms with the larger passenger vehicle business last year, said that the move has lead to major cross savings. ?There is better synergy with the back end functions like purchasing and manufacturing and this is giving good benefits,? Goenka said.
However, he feel the break even for both business is still some time away. ?We need 80,000 a month volumes in two-wheelers to become profitable, and that’s still some way off. In trucks, we need boht volumes and discounting. While volumes are up 16-18% between April and August this year in the 25 tonne plus segment, discounts haven’t gone down,? he said.