Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) revealed their new and updated models at an extravagant gathering across the country called the ‘RevFest’ in August this year. The event was huge and grand with celebrities, a GAS fashion show and local indie artists’ performing. The RevFest had everything but missed out on the most crucial part, good bikes.
Except for the new Honda CBR650F that was launched for India, nothing else was really interesting at the event. They did reveal the new updated CBR250R and the CBR150R, but it was a mere disappointment as all the update it received was just new body graphics. Even the excitement of the new CBR650F also washed out when they announced its price tag.
And now Honda just revealed the prices of the new ‘updated’ CBR150R and the CBR250R. As we already mentioned, the new updated bikes do not get any mechanical upgrades or any changes to the bodywork. The Honda CBR150R which is a great 150cc category sport bike comes with the high revving and butter smooth 149.6cc 4-valve DOHC engine which gives 18.28 BHP of maximum power with 12.66 Nm of torque. The new CBR150R is priced at INR 1,46,613 on-road for Bangalore. The bike now comes with new colour schemes namely, Jazzy Blue Metallic, Sports Red and Candy Palm Green.
The new Honda CBR250R is also powered by the same 249.6cc 4-valve DOHC engine which produces a maximum power of 26.15 BHP and a peak torque of 22.9 Nm. The new CBR250R is priced at INR 1,89,836 for the standard non-ABS model and the ABS model comes at INR 2,23,635 on-road for Bangalore. The new colour schemes available are Black, Pearl Amazing White and Sports Red.
With Honda aggressively upgrading their international model line up with small but interesting new features and looks, any prospective customer expects the same from the locally manufactured flagship bikes from HMSI. With strong competition from the likes of Bajaj, KTM, Yamaha and Hero who revive their bikes at a much higher rate and provide great value for money, HMSI needs to show some response if it has to keep customers interested. Placing the Honda CBR250R and CBR150R in the premium category with a high price tag was a bold move by HMSI. But, with the premium tag to it, more frequent and significant upgrades are what customers look forward to. We hope HMSI understands the changing customer preferences and takes it seriously if it has to stay in competition with the in-house motorcycle manufacturers in India.