VOL. 52 ISSUE 13 MARCH 31, 2015 P99
F
or years Hero MotoCorp has been a big
player in the Indian market, but it's big-
ger than you probably think: With over $6
million in annual sales last year, it's the world's
largest pure-motorcycle manufacturer. Last
week we began our two-part interview with
the company's CEO and Vice Chairman—
Pawan Munjal.
In part one, Munjal talked about the back-
ground of the company and the departure
from its successful partnership with Honda
in favor of controlling its own R&D and global
expansion. This week Munjal talks about that
new R&D structure, the company's involve-
ment in racing and the future of Hero Moto-
Corp. If you missed part one, you can read it
by clicking the link here: http://bit.ly/1E61sXP.
Concerning Hero's R&D structure,
besides your own operation let's just look
at the three partners. AVL is already well
known, but in the case of Engines Engi-
neering, your smaller Indian rivals Mahin-
dra had already purchased some equity
in the company from Alberto Strazzari—so
did you buy that from Mahindra?
No, he had already purchased his company
back from them. However, we are more than
simply clients of his. We work very closely
together, with both of us learning from each
other. We have his engineers at our place,
and vice versa, so it's much more than just a
supplier relationship. They focus mainly on
scooters, but are doing motorcycles as well.
How about Erik Buell—I understand you
met each other completely by chance, so
how did your relationship evolve from there?
Well, after finishing with Harley-Davidson,
Erik was also looking to do something on
his own—we had a similar background in that
respect. He was also looking for a partner to
work with, and we happened to know mutual
friends who introduced me to Erik, and I think
we hit it off at the very first meeting. It didn't
take me too long to decide to work together
with him, even though he was doing these big
1190cc motorbikes that were the opposite of
what Hero needed. I could clearly see Erik as
an innovator, an engineer and a thinker, and
that even for our smaller 100cc models or a
Hero scooter, he could use his knowledge,
experience, innovation and ideas to build
exciting new stuff for us.
Having taken that decision, were you
surprised at the breadth of his potential?
Because the kind of prototypes we've
seen EBR produce for you are amazing—
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA AND GOLD & GOOSE
PART II: BECOMING A
GLOBAL PLAYER
Pawan Munjal talks EBR, racing and the
future of Hero MotoCorp
