Description
At EICMA 2026, Hero MotoCorp headlined with the Hero Xpulse 450 and the VIDA Motorcycles, and we sat down with Harshavardhan Chitale, CEO of Hero MotoCorp, to discuss the Xpulse 450, Harley-Davidson X350T, and VIDA electric motorcycles. As Hero celebrates 25 years as the world’s number one two-wheeler manufacturer, we asked the questions Indian riders are asking: is the X350T just a GST special, will the Harley Sprint come to India, and when does Hero’s first electric motorcycle go on sale?
The Hero Xpulse 450 comes from the team behind Hero’s Dakar Rally bike, based at the R&D centre in Rosenheim near Munich. Chitale says its engine is a ground-up design with no relation to the X440. Customer deliveries start sometime in 2027, and the Xpulse 150 for Latin America is ready to ship. On the Harley-Davidson X350T, he says the GST change created the opening, but it is a different bike with different specs, not an X440 in a different bottle, and the X440 continues alongside it at a different price. The X440 reached a 25 per cent share of the 400 to 500cc segment within a year of launch, and Hero MotoCorp plans more launches on the platform for 2027. He says the Harley-Davidson Sprint 440 is designed in Milwaukee and assembled in York, US, with no plans for India in the near future, and the Maverick will not return.
Hero’s first Vida electric motorcycle is production-ready and goes on sale in India in 2027, with performance equivalent to a 125 to 150cc liquid-cooled bike. An electric adventure motorcycle follows the same year. Electric is under 1 per cent of motorcycles, compared with 25 per cent of scooters, and Hero is not investing in CNG, backing petrol, flex fuel and electric instead. He also covers Novus Labs, Hero MotoCorp's open innovation platform where eight out of ten ideas reach production, plus ten years of Hero MotoSports in Dakar, the world championship double podium this year and Indian rider Shlok Ghorpade on the Road to Dakar programme.
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