5 Popular Misses of 2015 in Two-Wheeler Industry

India being one of the hottest markets for two wheelers has grabbed the attention of every two-wheeler manufacturer. Japanese giants like Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki are already selling their products in the market followed by Italians and Austrians. To compete in such a difficult race, every manufacturer puts their best of efforts, but not every product gets the expected success and fails to impress the Indian buyers. The company, in turn, is left with no option but to discontinue the product in a few years.

Today, we bring you a list of such vehicles that arrived this year but failed to impress the customers and hence, proved a big disappointment for both the makers as well the buyers. Let’s take a look.

1. Piaggio Vespa SXL 150:

The reason for this failure is pretty obvious. The Vespa range by Piaggio is currently the ranks in the list of costliest scooters in India. In a country where the majority of buyers look for an elegant looking, feature-packed scooter under a pleasing price tag, the Vespa did proved its worth on visuals but came with a big question mark on rest of the aspects. For this reason, the scooter remained limited to only those who wish to flaunt retro-style on a whopping Rs. 84,641 non-geared machine, that too is an ex-showroom price.

2. Honda CBR 150R and 250R:

During Revfest in August, Honda launched its most anticipated bike of the year, CBR 650F, which impressed a lot to the Indian buyers. In the same event, the company also presented the 2015 CBR 150R and 250R with a new theme and a paint scheme. When other Japanese automakers were more focused to generate more power and performance, Honda was happy to bring new colour schemes. People were expecting power from Honda, which the company failed to bring.

3. Yamaha Saluto:

The month of April witnessed a new 125cc horse from the Yamaha’s stable christened as the Saluto. The bike did move some eyeballs towards itself in the initial stage but soon they got diverted. Powered by a 125cc, air-cooled, blue-core enabled, four-stroke engine, the Saluto was launched in a single variant only consisting of alloy wheels and dual drum brakes. The colour options too were limited to two colours viz. Brave Black and Victory Red. The Saluto didn’t seem promising to the Indian customers due to the limited features and a basic body design that didn’t manage to grab much attention.

4. 2015 TVS Phoenix 125:

Another failure in the 125cc motorcycle segment came in the form of TVS Phoenix 125 that was upgraded earlier this year. Even with the attractive elements that this bike offers, the customers continued to go for CB Shine that emerged as the segment leader. TVS Phoenix comes powered by a 124.5cc, single-cylinder, air-cooled, Ecothrust engine that comes mated to a 4-speed constant mesh gearbox. The bike comes equipped with numerous attractive features such as vehicle locator key, fully digital console, hazard lamps, compound padded seat with contrast stitching, tubeless tyres and DC headlamp.

5. Bajaj Pulsar AS200:

A Semi-faired version of NS200, this year Bajaj gave us another variant of its highly popular Pulsar Series, Bajaj Pulsar AS200. AS of the motorcycle stands for Adventure Sports, which it completely fails to justify. Just putting up a fairing does not make it good enough for adventure touring, Bajaj needs to learn a lot about the adventure touring motorcycles.