“Stay tuned”: Hero MotoCorp CEO Harshavardhan Chitale on the Xpulse 450, the X350T and 25 years at the top

25 years. That’s how long Hero MotoCorp has been the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, and at EICMA in Milan it marked the milestone by showing the world what it builds beyond commuters. The headline act is the Xpulse 450, Hero’s new flagship adventure bike, with a 421cc liquid-cooled DOHC single making 46.6PS and a development story that runs straight back to the Dakar team in Germany.

Around it sit the Harley-Davidson X350T, a 350cc roadster from the partnership that gave India the X440, along with Vida’s first electric motorcycle, Vida’s European launch, and Novus Labs, a skunkworks for mobility ideas that would look more at home at the Japan Mobility Show. Over on the Harley stand there is also the new Sprint 440, though Hero’s CEO points out that is Harley’s bike and they alone can comment on it. Editor Sirish Chandran sat down with Harshavardhan Chitale who says he wants ranges rather than one-offs, and also said, “stay tuned” more than once.

Let’s start with the Xpulse 450. Talk us through the development, and why it has taken this long.

“Adventure biking is a big category that’s growing globally, not just in India. In many parts of the world it’s on- and off-roading: people want to commute on the same bike during the week and take it on exploratory rides at the weekend. So it’s a category we have been investing in, and as part of that we have invested in motorsport for over ten years. We have learnt a lot from the Dakar Rally. The Dakar team operates out of Rosenheim, near Munich, where we have our R&D centre, and the team that builds the rally bike is the team that built the Xpulse family. The learnings on terrain, suspension travel, reliability and durability have all come from there. The challenge was taking a rally bike, which is very expensive, and making it affordable and accessible. We started with the Xpulse 200 and 210. For Latin America we also have an Xpulse 150 ready, which we will start shipping shortly. The 450, being a bigger engine, needed more work on thermal management and heat dissipation. Now we are ready, so we have showcased it, and sometime in 2027 we will start shipping it to customers.”

Is the engine related in any way to the X440’s?

“No, not at all. It has totally different engine characteristics and a totally different use case. It’s a ground-up engine development. It’s not that the platform was ready and we just put an engine in it.”

Did you look at a multi-cylinder engine, or is that later in the plan?

“Stay tuned. As a category, we are very committed to adventure biking, and we will keep building and enriching the Xpulse family.”

A production category is coming to the Dakar soon. Will you supply motorcycles for it?

“It’s not something I can comment on yet, but we will keep watching that space. Motorsport teaches a lot. Globally in the auto industry, people learn from motorsport and a lot of those technologies eventually get commercialised. We are a company of passion and we support a lot of sports, but this one is directly connected to our industry, so besides the passion we treat it as a learning ground. We will continue to support it. We have also introduced an Indian rider, Shlok [Ghorpade].”

Waffi [Wolfgang Fischer] your team manager, says that in terms of raw speed Shlok is the best he has seen come out of India. For enthusiasts, an Indian rider on an Indian motorcycle at the Dakar would be phenomenal. Is the Road to Dakar programme progressing as intended?

“ Absolutely. Let’s hope we have one of them on the podium. We are going to continue to invest in it and build on it.”

The Harley X350T, is that a GST special?

“GST did create a tax arbitrage when it happened. But this product comes out of our co-development partnership with Harley-Davidson. The first product you build takes time, which is why the X440 took time: you are learning each other’s design language and quality and development processes. Since launching the X440 and then the X440T, we've seen good results. Within a year of launch we reached 25 per cent market share in the 400–500cc category. So the Harley name, with the technology and riding experience it brings, has great traction. Then it was a question of accessibility. Beyond 500cc there are bigger Harleys, but there was also a need for a more accessible bike, so we extended the partnership to a 350. It’s not the 440 made GST-ready, the same bike in a different bottle, so to speak. It’s a totally different bike with different specs and characteristics, sharing the same lineage.”

So the X440 continues alongside it?

“Absolutely. They are two different products at two different price points, with different functionality and specs. Both will continue.”

The Sprint is on the Harley-Davidson stand, and it’s made in India by Hero. Will you bring the Sprint to India?

“I can’t comment on ‘made in India by Hero’. It’s a product designed in Milwaukee by Harley-Davidson, so it’s a Harley-Davidson product. There are definitely co-development synergies, and our small- to mid-displacement capability and manufacturing progress is something Harley-Davidson leverages. But for the US market, for example, it will be assembled in the York factory. Harley is launching it progressively around the world and keeps looking at opportunities, including India, and at some stage we hope they decide to introduce it here. But from what we know, there are no plans to introduce it in India in the near future.”

This is a big story, though. India used to get CKD kits from global manufacturers to assemble and sell here. Now India is supplying CKD kits to a global manufacturer to assemble and sell in its markets.

“I can’t comment on that. On how Harley makes that bike in the US, they’re the best company to talk to.”

Either way, the 440 platform has now spawned the Sprint and the 350. Your competitors brought out smaller-capacity bikes as soon as the GST change was announced. Why have you taken your time?

“I can comment on the 350. But to correct you on the Sprint, I can’t say it’s the same platform growing. It’s a totally different product, designed in Milwaukee.”

We’ll put our journalist hats on and put two and two together.

“I’m just commenting on what is truly our product for India: the X440, X440T and X350T. Those are built on a common platform. I can’t say the same about the Sprint; Harley is in the best position to comment on that. As for timing, it’s just a development journey. The first one takes time to learn, and then you can rapidly start innovating and building on it. You will see us extend that platform further, with more launches on it from us. Stay tuned for 2027.”

The Mavrick shared components with the X440 and is no longer on sale. Will you bring it back?

“No, there is no plan to, because we see great traction for Harley and the ride experience Harley stands for. For the Indian market, we have no plans to bring back the Mavrick.”

Vida has shown its first all-electric motorcycle. Electric two-wheelers are huge in India, but they’re scooters, not motorcycles. What potential do you see?

“In general we are a big proponent of electrification. You have seen our investments in Vida, Ather and Euler, and in new platforms like Novus Labs and Surge. We believe that’s India’s answer to greener, cleaner mobility. You are right that electrification took off first where scooters found product–market fit. Around 25 per cent of the scooter category is now electrified. For motorcycles it’s still under 1 per cent. As an industry we have to solve product–market fit for motorcycles: the load bearing, the range. Motorcycles have historically been higher-mileage vehicles too. It’s a work in progress and we believe it will be solved one day. This is our first shot at a commercial product, and we will start selling it in India in 2027. What you saw is a working product, not a concept. It’s production-ready. Now it’s a question of ramping up and scaling before we introduce it in the market.”

The film you showed was all about enthusiastic riding, not commuting. Is that the focus?

“This one is a little more powerful, roughly equivalent to a 125–150cc liquid-cooled engine. But we are working on a full range. You also saw a prototype that isn’t production-ready, and an adventure bike that is production-ready, which we will also introduce in 2027. So we are working on a fair range of electric motorcycles, and just as with scooters, we believe it’s a matter of time before it happens in motorcycles. As a company we believe in multiple powertrains. There is a need for ICE, for flex fuels, and for electric mobility depending on the use case. CNG is something we are not investing in.”

Finally, Novus Labs. It’s the first time it has been talked about, and it showcases the kind of offbeat ideas you would normally see at the Japan Mobility Show. What’s the thinking, and who gets its products: Hero, Vida, or does it depend on the use case?

“This is our open innovation platform, and the thinking is explore, experiment, execute. In the explore phase you work with different ideas, and maybe eight out of ten will never see the light of day. A business run on sharp metrics of returns and ROI can’t necessarily do that kind of wild, exploratory thinking, which is why this platform took shape. Last year we showed the first concepts. The way we work is to bring them to events like EICMA, get feedback, and where we see potential, take them to prototype, which is what you saw. These are working prototypes. You will see more of them at Bharat Mobility, we will get more feedback, and they will go through the next phases of development. Whenever an idea becomes business-viable, it could go to the Hero brand or the Vida brand, depending on the product and platform.”
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