Royal Enfield boss Siddhartha Lal has confirmed that several models, including the Himalayan adventure bike, will be updated with engines up to 750cc.
He says the main motivation for bigger capacity engines comes from the Indian market, not export markets.
This is surprising given Royal Enfield’s biggest seller is the Classic 350 which sold 4,16,693 in the past year and sales of their bikes over 350cc actually dropped 23% in April 2017.
However, sales in India represent 96% of Royal Enfield business and the Indian motorcycle market is now the biggest in the world selling almost two million two-wheelers last year, well ahead of China with 1.6 million sales.
So it is important for Royal Enfield to satisfy its domestic market first.
Lal says the Himalayan is one of several models being considered for a larger engine:
Five years from now when we have a completely overhauled range of Royal Enfield bikes, you’ll certainly see even more classic motorcycles in that. The majority of our core models will still be classic oriented, and will come from our heritage, our roots, like the Continental GT or the Bullet Classic.
Royal Enfield CEO Siddhartha LalIt is currently powered by their Long Stroke 411cc single cylinder engines that produces 24.5bhp of power and 32Nm of torque.
However, Royal Enfield is expected to launch their Interceptor soon, powered by a 750cc parallel twin, so that could be the engine they are considering for the Himalayan.
It could also be just a bored-out version of the long-stroke engine.
The adventure bike was launched around the world last year and is priced Australia at $5990 plus on-road costs.
It has been criticised for not having enough power and for quality control issues. In fact, an Indian engineer is suing the company for 40 faults in his bike.