If you missed out on checking out spy images of the 2020 KTM RC390, do check them out here. If you’ve been wondering whether the Duke 790 or the Adventure 790 will make it to India? Well, it could be anybody’s guess. What requires no guesswork though is some lime fresh development, which comes straight from the Horse’s mouth.
KTM’s CEO Stefan Pierer has revealed that a new 500 cc, the twin-cylinder platform is currently under development and it will be manufactured by their partner, Bajaj Auto, at their facility in India. The new platform will act as a vital tool which will push KTM’s intent to become the third largest sports motorcycle manufacturer in the World, behind Yamaha and Honda, by the year 2020. Will it be an adventure, a naked, a faired machine, or multiple variants spawning out of a single platform? Nobody knows, but our guess is that it might mimic the 390 range of motorcycles.
In an excerpt from his interview with SpeedWeek, Mr Pierer reiterated that the bike maker’s focus will continue to remain on a single and twin cylinder motorcycles. Talking about their focus on mid-capacity motorcycles, he said, “The theme is a 790 adventure. We want to sell 15,000 of them next year; the middle class is becoming more important. In this segment, we will come to other models, an SMT and so on. In the 500 cc class, we will bring a two-cylinder machine, which is manufactured by our partner Bajaj in India and with which we compete against the Japanese. Growth is happening in the emerging markets today, and in these emerging markets ‘premium’ is the mid-range of 500 to 800 cc.”
Talking about the future of the motorcycle market, he added, “New homologation challenges await us – for example, we have Euro 5. In 2024, the issue of noise will come up. It is also in the demographic development in Europe. Today you have to go to Asia with the motorcycle business, to India. If you are not successful there, you will eventually be gone.”