[sadsack]

I must say that Bajaj does not disappoint me one bit when it comes to its hit and miss strategies. Every single success of Bajaj's has been more due to a fluke rather than any well thought out strategy. Its genius lies in the fact that it has this amazing part bin engineering where every component that it manufactured will never go waste. The Aspire metamorphosed in the CT-100, the 4S after repeated attempts to establish a Boxer brand (the original Boxer was what the TVS Max is today sans the two extra shock absorbers at the rear) found acceptance as the Boxer AT and the Boxer CT and the latter became just the CT 100. The Boxer name disappeared from the Indian market till it was re-introduced as a 150 cc commuter motorcycle with no frills and this too disappeared. But that is not the end of the Boxer, apparently. Bajaj has decided to get into the Cafe Racer game; if Hero can do it with the 100 cc Splendor, Bajaj is doing it with the 150 cc Boxer. For some reason Turkey has become the launch pad for Bajaj vehicles and so Bajaj has displayed the Boxer Cafe Racer there. Will it come to India? Who knows it might or might not? Probably will depend on the marketing genius of Rajiv Bajaj and his cohorts.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Originally Posted by StepUP!

Well "Hamara Bajaj" does look confused and clueless on the market dynamics. They are launching bikes according to their whims and fancies. I am sure soon Bajaj will be no more in the performance segment as well. They are absent in gearless scooters and have a poor presence in the entry level motorcycles. Honda will make sure they disappear with their Pulsars. Being junior to Bajaj in Indian market, they have left Bajaj behind biting dust.

Dear StepUP - your comments are absolutely perfect, so thank you!

Gearless scooters is where the action is, the market is ripe for a game changer, get the equation right, the pickings are going to be huge. I guess a "big grin" smiley is called for. .

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[payeng]

Originally Posted by sadsack

Every single success of Bajaj's has been more due to a fluke rather than any well thought out strategy.

Success of a new product by any manufacturer, depends a lot on Luck/Fluke.

The Honda Eterno is a classic case. Does anyone think that the Honda Eterno was made/developed without a lot of careful thought and strategy?

Originally Posted by sadsack

Its genius lies in the fact that it has this amazing part bin engineering where every component that it manufactured will never go waste.

Every single automobile maker follows this strategy. In automotive parlance its called as "Sharing Parts/Platforms".

.. its just not possible to develop totally new parts for every single launch without going bankrupt.

Originally Posted by sadsack

But that is not the end of the Boxer, apparently. Bajaj has decided to get into the Cafe Racer game; if Hero can do it with the 100 cc Splendor, Bajaj is doing it with the 150 cc Boxer.

For the time being, the Boxer Café Racer Story seems to be FAKE. Just a mod job by an owner/enthusiast. Check this: http://www.motosiklet.net/forum/mt-k...er-yapimi.html

Originally Posted by sadsack

For some reason Turkey has become the launch pad for Bajaj vehicles..

Not just Turkey but new Bajaj models have been shown in countries like Columbia, Cambodia, Iran. New models have not been launched in these markets though.. just shown. Testing Waters??

The Indian market is definitely showing growth more for automatic scooters than motorcycles. And the 100 cc motorcycle customer (the category that still accounts for a lion share among motorcycles) is not ready to let go off the Splendor/Passion.

Looks like if Mr. Bajaj wants to stick with motorcycles, he has to look outside of India for growth of his company.

[sadsack]

@Payeng,
Good to see you here. I am not joining issue with you here, all I will say is it good to have someone defend Bajaj, most of us seem to be Bajaj bashers. And yes you are right about the Boxer Cafe Racer, it was the work of an enthusiast in Turkey and not a Bajaj effort. I stand corrected on that one.

[payeng]

Originally Posted by sadsack

@Payeng,
Good to see you here. I am not joining issue with you here, all I will say is it good to have someone defend Bajaj, most of us seem to be Bajaj bashers.

And yes you are right about the Boxer Cafe Racer, it was the work of an enthusiast in Turkey and not a Bajaj effort. I stand corrected on that one.

Well I am not "Defending" Mr. Bajaj.. just posting my 2 cents about bikes and business that I have learnt/believe/followed over the years.

[rajeev k]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

My take on Bajaj Auto products is not very good, please read:
I lost half of my money which I did not forget.
I again lost half of my money which I did not forget.

I lost 90% of my hard earned money on another dubious Bajaj product; the Saffire.

This was India's first automatic scooter with a four stroke engine and an auto box.
This product and its subsequent updates or upgrades with newer names flopped before anyone noticed these.

I spent Rs 35K for one and sold it for 3K later. Link: http://bajaj-saffire-booking-buying-...ng-experience-

I then took a pledge to not even give a second look at any Bajaj Auto product.

Another Bajaj product had flopped before it was launched. Yes you guessed it right, The Bajaj small car, RE 60.

[vivekgk]

The funny thing is, the CT100 is one of the Bajaj models that was actually admired for its reliability. The pre-Platina 100cc bikes had a reputation for being very efficient and somewhat reliable, and well kept models still fetch a good price today.

So, all in all, going back to the basics with the CT100 might not be such a bad idea for Bajaj.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Originally Posted by rajeev k

I lost 90% of my hard earned money on another dubious Bajaj product; the Saffire. This was India's first automatic scooter with a four stroke engine and an auto box. I spent Rs 35K for one and sold it for 3K later. I then took a pledge to not even give a second look at any Bajaj Auto product.

Dear rajeevk - you are absolutely correct, after all their corporate, design, manufacturing and marketing efforts, the end result was that we lost money, period! The thing just did not work! For the company, each customer case will be 0.000001% failure, but for that particular customer, it is 100% failure! The worst thing is that each customer becomes one row in the statistics of an excel file, which is just not acceptable. The customer is a human being, not a statistic!

As I always live with hope, that people will read, understand, appreciate and do something to improve, I hope the boffins read this, don't rubbish it, and have an action plan with clearly defined customer-centric deliverables with timelines to achieve the same. This should form the basis of goal sheets, the result of which should be measured by the actual feedback of how the vehicles work on the roads out there in the hands of external customers who pay hard earned money to buy them, and not by the on-line data available as "field feedback", also made to look fancy and complicated by IT based jargon so that it can be inferred in many convenient ways! .

If you ask customers, they will tell you, but you got to move out of Citadel Towers to ask! Sorry for being absolutely cut and dry, but this is reality!

Dear Vivekgk - your comment - "the CT100 is one of the Bajaj models that was actually admired for its reliability. Well kept models still fetch a good price today. So, all in all, going back to the basics with the CT100 might not be such a bad idea for Bajaj" - is correct.

Now, I can say, that when I tested all the 100cc "Indian benchmarking vehicles" during the development phase of the 2-wheeler project which I started (I am delighted to mention this ) and progressed, much before the project was formally announced in 2008, the CT100 gave the maximum highway fuel efficiency of 72 kmpl and I could start the engine by operating the kick lever by hand. I could not achieve this performance in any other Indian benchmarking vehicle as also all three of my prototypes! The CT100 also used the complete band allowed by CMVR to calibrate the odometer, which was not there in any other 100cc vehicle.

However, in the corporate world, withdrawing a good vehicle, replacing it with a not so good vehicle and then crying wolf is normal, so I was not surprised then and I am not surprised now also!

The reality is that nobody really knows what will sell, so they always introduce something which may not sell, so that they can tell each other, "I had told you"! The cycle goes on and on! HaHaHa!

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[StepUP!]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

Dear StepUP - your comments are absolutely perfect, so thank you!

Gearless scooters is where the action is, the market is ripe for a game changer, get the equation right, the pickings are going to be huge. I guess a "big grin" smiley is called for. .

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

Thank you!

Well if you remember Bajaj did come up with many funny things in between. I am still figuring out why they launched XCD? In no time it flopped also. They had launched puny bike called Byk (And TVS followed by launching Centra)

Bajaj had launched a bike named sx Endura long back which was an off roader like Hero Impulse.

Their automatic scooter journey started with Sunny, Spirit, Saffire, Wave and ended with Kristal I guess.

They played enough in scooters segment as well by launching products - Legend and Bravo. (TVS followed by launching Spectra...and history repeated. Whenever TVS followed Bajaj, it flopped too!)

This 115, 125 game was played by Bajaj earlier too by launching Wind 125 along with Caliber 115. As expected it failed. But "Not to learn from mistakes. Not to listen to market" is Bajaj's motto.


I owned Caliber 115, M80, Spirit. So that way I am rather was loyal to Bajaj

But after I rode Suzuki Access I came to know what is butter smooth engine, reliable niggle free product, which without any fuss delivers expected mileage and power for years.

I remember Caliber 115 Hoodibaba commercial. And How Bullet thrashed that commercial in their own commercial.

Finally Plulsar was a hit bike. Rajiv failed to ride on the success and harp it for entry level bikes and gearless scooters. So nastily like a cry baby he quit those segments thinking I will make up through Pulsar margins. But finally these segments only made him bent in knees.

[abhishek46]

9 engines in 100-220 range is just baffling.
In my college days i was using a bajaj boxer, within 4 years of use, had almost every component on the bike was screwed, starting from clutch plates, piston rings, front suspensions, tyres (some unknown brand was provided), chain sprockets.. the list was endless.

After i moved to bangalore i got myself a HH Hunk, which has now proved to infinitely more reliable than the bajaj.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Dear all - well, as customers, in all the 25 posts above, we have bashed them enough. I hope that they sit up, take notice and do something about it! I guess we must now layoff, wait and watch! Best of luck to them.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[blue_pulsar]

After all the bashing here, I thought I should mention this. My 2005 Bajaj Pulsar has never failed me. Though it has run only 32k+ km, it was idle for almost 3 years when I wasn't in India. But I agree, they have done a bad job wrt ergonomics and handling.

As far as my next bike is concerned, it will be either a Duke 390 or a Pulsar 400 NS ( if they launch one).

[ramprakashr]

Well, as expected and discussed, here comes the news :

http://www.team-bhp.com/news/bajaj-c...chetak-scooter

Chetak brand is being revived! So what next, hoodibaba (caliber)eh?

Here's the bajaj scooter sunset thread : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motorb...ts-sunset.html . If I remember right, it all ended (or paused?) with bajaj kristal...

Interesting times ahead, personally I would want a moto scooter upward 150CC!

[PNTLovesNano]

I went to a Bajaj showroom yesterday to check out on the CT100. It looks exactly the same as it was launched 11 years ago in 2004, and is now out with new stickers. Unlike the Boxer BM150 which did not feature on their very own bajajauto.com website, this one makes its way to the website, which is good in a certain way, check http://www.bajajauto.com/ct100_price.asp#topLook.

The on-road price, in Bangalore, for the spoke version is Rs.42,250/- and alloy is approximate Rs.45K. If I compare the pricing with the Bajaj Boxer AT which I purchased in 2002 March for Rs.33,500/- which was without battery. I think the Boxer CT then costed Rs.39K. This marginal hike of about 3K is worth if we look at the SnS shock absorbs and inflation. The Boxer AT was bullet proof on abusive roads and if the CT100 today's version is the same, it is very much worth of it.

The one thing that I appreciate is the flat seating which makes it very useful as a family bike. Though the website says the bike is available in two colors Ebony Black and Electron Blue, the dealer said its available in one color with two variants of stickers.

Overall, I miss my good old Boxer to the extent that I would be have purchased this CT100 at the first impulse. However, after coercing my wife to get Nano Twist last October, I have committed that until the house loan is cleared, there won't be another new vehicle. So, if Bajaj will keep the CT 100 in production over the next five years, they have a customer in me

[abhi29]

Originally Posted by abhi29

It doesn't seem too baffling to me,

This launch IMO is nothing more than a little gamble. CT100 will sell or not is a different story, but it’s a step where Bajaj has almost nothing to lose.

Can't resist bumping the old thread as I just saw the latest numbers :

CT 100cc - Feb 16 - 42,924 / Feb 15 - 6696. Growth 541%

Also made it to the top 10 list.

Curious to know what the bashing brigade wants to say now