Bajaj Auto to launch CNG-run motorcycle in June 2024, says no plans to make cars or enter racing

Bajaj Auto is slated to launch a CNG-run motorcycle in June 2024. Stating that the government has done well to expand the CNG network, the company’s MD Rajiv Bajaj said the fuel halves the operational cost of vehicles, and is hence a lure for customers.

With 60,000 to 70,000 CNG-run 3-wheelers being sold every month, he said that the three-wheeler industry largely migrated to CNG in the past five years.

Bajaj made it clear that the company doesn’t make cars because it doesn’t think it’s right for the brand. Having been exposed to the world of racing due to its interface with Triumph, the company also doesn’t intend to enter the realm of bike racing. The rationale being, Bajaj explains, that the company doesn’t want to lower its 20% EBITDA by entering the expensive world of racing.

Highlighting the company’s transition from scooters to bikes and domestic to export markets, he said that the third transition is now towards new energy vehicles.

Describing the ability to make a transition at the right time as the real hallmark of a company, Bajaj revealed why he has been an admirer of the Honda Motor company since his school days. He explained that Honda’s founder wanted the best engineers and managers to come to the company to realise their dreams.

Stressing that no one change the world by creating a sensation of claiming to spend thousands of crores to generate lakhs of jobs, he outlined the importance of skilling in the workforce as he referred to a conversation between Mahatma Gandhi and Bajaj Group’s founder Jamnalal Bajaj, who had termed CSR as constructive social reform.

He said that Bajaj Auto’s Pulsar was launched at nearly the same time when a second-rate bridge was made in Pune, around two decades ago. Recounting a conversation around the time with a senior politician he refrained from naming, he said that he had informed him about trying to make a world-class product in Bajaj Pulsar. He said that he questioned the politician for making a second rate bridge despite being in power in the state and at the Centre, adding that how can the government expect the industry to make world-class products and then not give a world-class performance. While he beamed that Bajaj Auto is poised to sell two million Pulsars in 93 countries this year, he opined that the country will change when politicians say that their real politics is constructive growth.