Piaggio to develop ‘Make in India’ Motorcycles; possible launch in 2023

India has been waiting for a small capacity Aprilia motorcycle for a long time now and concept motorcycles were already showcased. However, we may have to wait some more time.

According to a report in auto news publisher, Autocar, Piaggio is now planning to launch a made-in-India motorcycle by 2023. There is no official date set in mind, but there is hope.

At present Piaggio sells Vespa and Aprilia scooters in India, however, the footprint is small thanks to a smaller dealer network. Speaking to Autocar Professional, Diego Graffi, MD and CEO, Piaggio Vehicles said, “We have 250 dealerships. All dealerships are 3S and are of the Motoplex model. We don’t use a secondary network. Our target is to reach as close as 350 dealerships in 2021. It is a very challenging target but we will try to reach as close as 350 dealerships.”

About the new motorcycles, Graffi said that they were seeing a rising interest and demand in the 150cc-300cc segment.

“Our plan is to make a motorcycle in India and make it suitable not only for the Indian market but also for the global market. But this will definitely take some time – a brand-new motorcycle by 2022-23,” he said.

Piaggio earlier had plans to also launch two 150cc motorcycles in India, the Aprilia RS 150 and the Aprilia Tuono 150, after their showcase at the 2018 Auto Expo. Both these have been scrapped for now and the company will focus on 300cc-400cc motorcycles. This, the company said, was due to the evolving situation of the Indian market and the midsize segment now showed more potential for growth.