Forum

[Mr Grumpy]

I was just looking at Yahoo News and found this:'Indian bike maker Royal Enfield to expand after Obama thumbs-up apparently they are building two new factories one at Leicester? The other in India.

[Mr Grumpy]

Does this link help? https://uk.news.yahoo.com/indian-bike-m ... ml#yKFrDQ1

[John R]

Wow! Enfield coming home? A lot of people in Leicestershire are Indian- but will they work for the same pay as they do in Chennai?

[Mr Grumpy]

Yes it seems so John the link does not seem to work but this is an extract from it:
The company, based in southwestern India but rooted in British biking history, will spend five billion rupees ($80 million) this year on building two factories as well as other expansion plans.

"Royal Enfield will be investing Rs 500 crore in 2015 towards product development, capex and other development areas," chief executive Siddhartha Lal said in a statement posted on its website.

"With a view to become the leader in the global mid-sized motorcycling, Royal Enfield will build two new technology centers."

The centres will be located in the southern Indian city of Chennai and the English county of Leicestershire and be completed by the second quarter of 2016 and the end of 2015 respectively.

Not sure if technology centres means bikes would be built here but that is an impression I get?

[Norm]

They will probably send over bikes in knock down kit form for assembly in Leicestershire and after a few years they will probably start producing parts there as well, maybe start with frames and things like that

[Alan R]

------ and then the British Army will place an order for 1,000 units which will arrive in CKD form and be re-assembled here ( Probably in a satellite unit in say-----Redditch for example ??)...........Meanwhile the global economy overheats, Chennai contracts and the Management team at the Redditch satellite unit stage a buy-out.....Chennai folds altogether whilst the Redditch unit buys the tooling from Chennai then, ---in partnership with Hitchcocks ---- goes into full-time manufacturing by announcing the re-introduction of the long-awaited twin..............OINK,OINK-----FLAP,FLAP. !!!

[Norm]

And then we will see the demise of the Jappanese motorcycle industry because they will be outclassed buy the Chinese manufacturers

[papasmurf]

Norm have you ever stripped down a motorcycle built in China? Because in my experience, the safest thing to do with a brand new one is strip it down and rebuild it BEFORE you use it

[Norm]

But Papa you can get them with free postage

[rustygman]

Fantastic news. If someone could explain the economic sense of moving some production to england with our much higher wage and overall costs I would be interested in any theories. Could it be an indicator of a more premium product to be assembled for Europe and America perhaps or would that just be wishful thinking?