[avishar]

From Sirish Chandran on Twitter, during the new Bajaj 250 launch

I am guessing he was asked about the competition. Typical of Mr Bajaj to make proceedings a bit interesting.


Rajiv Bajaj is asked about #EV & #startup
“If I had to bet on somebody I would bet on BET (Bajaj Enfield TVS)
“We are champions. What do champions eat? Champions eat oats (Ola Ather Torq SmartE)”

Rajiv Bajaj, “Good Indian 2 wheeler companies are not as light weight as some start-ups would like you to believe.
“Indian 2 wheeler manufactures have been able to take on the Japanese very successfully

Rajiv Bajaj “When we launch in Oct you will get it in Nov. Not launch in 2021 and get in 2022.
“Their [start-up] business model is cash burn. Ours is cash flow. We operate very differently”

Rajiv Bajaj “Among startups the biggest is #Ola. They haven’t produced or sold anything. #Ather we enormously respect”

Rajiv Bajaj “If I were in their [EV start-up] shoes and I got no R&D, getting my stuff from China or Scandinavia, no factory which was supposed to start in June, haven’t made anything, an IPO coming, you have to spin a story…”

No-one has a crystal ball so it is difficult to accurately predict how the Indian electric two-wheeler story will pan out.

But what is interesting is that, a week back Herbert Diess, the CEO of Volkswagen invited none other than Elon Musk into a company strategy conference which was being attended only by the VW executives. Mr Diess spoke warmly about Musk and admitted Tesla keeps pushing the industry forward. For an organization as stoic as VW, that turned up a few eye-brows. A signal that, after years and years of automotive media prophesizing the demise of Tesla at the hands of the German giants, the said giants came down to realize that it they who might need to catch up (and be nice to the competition).

[neofromcapone]

What else is he supposed to say?
If the management was not rattled by the upcoming OATS, they wouldn't need to make such bombastic statements.

And bravado is much needed, when the flock and stock has to be motivated.
Interesting times

[Axe77]

As much as I respect Rajiv Bajaj for his outspokenness and often entertaining quotes and quips, in the current environment he should talk less and put his head down and deliver more. The fact is that rank newcomers like Ather and Ola might just catch stalwarts like Bajaj with their pants down if BET don’t get their act together soon should be embarrassing for him. The space and ambition that Ola is vying for should ideally have been in the crosshairs of Bajaj instead.

Let your work speak for the foreseeable future please!

[gururajrv]

Over-enthusiastic in one word, if I’ve to put it that way. Bajaj introduced Dominar being over ambitious of their product and later the story turned out to be different. While Pulsar brand will march on, for a person of Rajiv Bajaj’s caliber shouldn’t be speaking too low of the EV competition and their struggle to secure funding. Each start up has to go through their phase before becoming a biggie like Bajaj. I’m sure Bajaj also faced a similar situation when it was a startup too. Respect your competition, else it’d eat into your sales very soon!

[shortbread]

In all the years I have heard Mr.Bajaj make statements, never heard him sound so aggressive towards another two wheeler maker.

If anything the likes of OLA should be flattered!

[hemanth.anand]

During the press conference at the launch of the new Pulsar motorbikes, their MD has told that legacy auto companies will eat new EV Players for breakfast.

I truly hope Bajaj too succeed but hope i don'tunderstand the need for this unnecessary jibes...Champions don't do that!

"We are champions and champions eat OATS for breakfast. (Ola, Ather, Tork Motors and SmartE)."

Source:
https://www.bloombergquint.com/busin...-for-breakfast

But i liked his creativity in coining the acronym OATS

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by avishar

Rajiv Bajaj “When we launch in Oct you will get it in Nov. Not launch in 2021 and get in 2022."

Says the head of the company that launched the Chetak in 2019, and still has presence in only 4 something cities after two years. How many BHPians have even seen a Chetak?

I highly respect Mr Rajiv Bajaj for his words, usually, but actions need to speak louder than words. As an ex-Pulsar owner, I am totally disappointed with their horribly outdated range today, and even the brand new Pulsars launched today looks outdated (IMHO) and fails to excite even a bit, against how much some of the competition have moved on.

All the ads for Pulsar Mania recently - do they even remember what Pulsarmania was? How the Pulsar used to dominate the wishlist of the youth back in the day?Pulsar was an aspirational brand of it's own back in the day, much bigger than brand Bajaj - who is the target audience these days?

Bajaj is killing it's own brand value trying to give all the highlight to KTM.

[Gansan]

For eating them, legacy auto companies should have a competent product, not something sourced from China and modified for Indian roads. I for one, would buy an EV from an EV company and not from any legacy auto maker. It is a totally new product and concept.

And definitely not from Bajaj. I never buy anything from them anyway!

[udaikalra01]

Bhavish replies to Rajiv Bajaj's "BET vs OATS" comment by retweeting this.

[shortbread]

Leave OLA aside, for the past few years small scale two electric two wheeler assemblers were having a great time importing cheap chinese kits and putting together two wheelers of varying standards and selling en masse in India? Dont tell me Mr.Bajaj hasn't noticed them when travelling around India.

Didn't Mr. Bajaj crave for Oats, Upma, Dosa whatever then?

The steadfast stubbornness of IC engine automakers is frustrating. So many glaring examples of global majors who had to correct course, then why don't Indian automakers learn from these stories rather than burn their own fingers committing to the same mistake?

'Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes, fools by their own.' - HG Brown

[timuseravan]

The sad fact of the matter is that the BETs have to actually turn a profit on every vehicle sold. They are not powered by pipe dreams and unicorn power

TVS, which sells about 3 million vehicles in about 20 countries world over has same market capitalization as Ola which has not really sold a single vehicle till date. We are truly living in times of fantasy.

[RohaNN_kWh]

BOLD STATEMENT SIR

Today's generation prefers OATS more than anything

I BET that your BET about eating OATS is nothing more than a PR stunt because the market suggests otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_rYLHZuxQ

[sandeepmdas]

Big mistake by Mr.Rahul Bajaj. He simply created sort of a Whatsapp group, added his competition to it, branded it and promoted it.

Now all OATS needed is declare itself, just like the "new-gen" banks identified themselves as such in the early 2000s to differentiate from the "old generation" banks. All new players too will align with OATS, you bet. Unlike banking (where old = established/credibility), in tech sector no one would want to be seen attached with such an image.

[SKC-auto]

Rajiv Bajaj “When we launch in Oct you will get it in Nov. Not launch in 2021 and get in 2022."

What an idiotic statement to make when your Chetak is not available for booking for months after launch, when the booking were opened they increased the price by 47000₹.

I saw similar statements from GM, Ford, BMW heads ~5 years back about Tesla, when the big boys start the game Tesla has no chance. Rajiv Bajaj is a worried man.

[Balaji31582]

Sorry, I am going to go completely off topic but in a way wanted to point out what is my take away from Mr.Bajaj's statements.

I think bajaj has not considered themselves out of race but what they mean is they don't want to jump the gun by aggressively getting into EV sans the infrastructure. I would want to recollect what honda also mentioned recently with respect to EV presence in india.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fir...86661.html/amp


While there is no doubt EV is going to rule in future, I think it will take some more time for us to catch up on the infrastructure. The government should bite the bullet and get all the government vehicles to be EV and start setting up infrastructure rather expecting Tata Power, Ather, TVS to set up on their own and expect consumers to embrace it. With all diesel and petrol prices crossing 100, how many strike or bandh happened so far asking government to reduce it ?
All the state governments are happy in getting the GST out of fuel prices and so far the general public have also started to get used to this, leaving the prices of commodities to inflate.

We are seeing more of higher segments getting launched which might bring in ROI for the manufacturers even though selling very less. TATA for that matter could have launched Punch EV instead of ICE. They have the components but what is stopping them ? The general sales are not at peak but that is not because of fuel prices alone. So it means the buying crowd is still OK to go with ICE vehicles. Also on the other hand why no debates on the cost of EVs which could be one of reasons for public to not quickly embrace it.

For Tamilnadu, the recent news is we are going to start seeing CNG stations more. Plesse see the below https://m.timesofindia.com/city/chen...w/84811966.cms
For all the EV policies at centre and a contrary call out like above, why would general public immediately embrace it without the expected infrastructure?

For ICE, it was because of bs6 and covid impact, we saw price rise. If OEMs are expected to invest on infra, the economics isn't going to be the same as what they get in ICE. For consumers a good EV is costing above 1.2L. So how do we see the numbers unless we get to see them for 75k for a good EV ?

I know most of us would mention Nokia's case study but i think folks at BET are already knowing that and so are also slowly investing in EV to not burn their fingers.

Hence, the reality is reason for Mr.Bajaj's overwhelming statement.