Harley Found Its Chinese Partner
In an effort to expand its reach in Asia, Harley has decided to team up with the Qianjiang Motorcycle Company, which is owned by Geely—a major Chinese automotive and motorcycle company. Geely has a massive global reach. For example, it owns Volvo. The move isn’t surprising. It was already stated that Harley would seek to make a motorcycle with a displacement of fewer than 500ccs.
Now that the company announced its partnership with the Qianjiang Motorcycle Company we also know that the bike in question will use a 338cc engine. That’s a decent sized machine for the Asian market. An interesting move by Harley is to focus on the Chinese market instead of the Indian one. The company is going to China first, according to RideApart and then expanding from there. Harley wants to see 50 percent growth by 2027.
That’s an ambitious goal. The 338cc motorcycle will be sold next to Harley’s other models in China, which are currently on sale and seeing growth in the Chinese market. Hopefully, for HD, the smaller displacement bike will help it reach even more customers. The small motorcycle from Harley and its new partner will come in 2020.
It will be interesting to see how Harley owners and buyers in the U.S. feel about this move. This sort of move was inevitable for the brand as it expands its global reach, but I can’t see this going over well with Harley’s current customer base. With that said, it’s not like Harley will sell Chinese-made motorcycles here, so maybe people won’t care.