Suzuki Motorcycle India has discontinued the sale of six of its big bikes – the GSX-R1000, GSX-S750, GSX-S1000, GSX-SF1000, Hayabusa, and V-Strom 1000 – from the market, as none of them has been updated to meet the BS6 norms.
With BS6 norms coming into force from April 2020, a number of manufacturers have been forced to discontinue their products, since they don’t meet the new stricter emission norms. If there’s one segment that’s been affected by the introduction of BS6 norms really badly, it has to be the big and premium motorcycle segment. You see, most of the premium or high-performance bikes we have in India are either direct imports (CBU) from global markets or, in some cases, they are assembled here as CKDs.
Now the problem that arises here is that not all big bike makers have BS6 ready motorcycles in their portfolio. And that’s because the equivalent Euro 5 norms for these bikes in global markets haven’t come to force as yet – the deadline for Euro 5 norms is 2021. As a result, most of the big bike makers haven’t really bothered to update their motorcycles for the Indian market, since the volumes of these bikes here are quite low as compared to other markets around the world. Plus, the ongoing Coronavirus crisis has only made matters worse.
Thanks to this unique situation, India is going to see some world-class motorcycles disappear from the market. And the first big bike maker that has pulled the plug on more than half of its line-up in India is Suzuki. The company has discontinued the sale of six of its big bikes – the GSX-R1000, GSX-S750, GSX-S1000, GSX-SF1000, Hayabusa, and V-Strom 1000 – from the market as none of them has been updated to meet the BS6 norms.
There’s no news if Suzuki plans to bring any of the aforementioned bikes with BS6 updates. As we already know, the Hayabusa won't make a comeback, as its production has reached the end of the road in global markets, too. The V-Strom 1000 won't come back either, but we might see the new V-Strom 1050 in India soon.
On the upside, the company has confirmed the BS6 version of its middleweight adventure tourer, the V-Strom 650 XT, by releasing a teaser on its website in India. There’s also a good chance of the GSX-S750 returning to the market with a BS6-compliant engine later this year. But, at the moment, with the COVID-19 creating havoc all around the world, even that looks like a remote possibility – well, at least for the next couple of months.
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