Patrick from Baron Von Scooter sent us this interesting story about
the fall of scooter popularity in India, generally considered to be one of the hottest scooter markets. The decline in sales has even put LML’s ET4 knockoff on hold. Analysts are hoping for an upturn on the heels of the Honda Eterno and several new Bajaj models. Maybe what they really need is the timely-named Sauron. Middle-Earth evil, available now at BVS.
Rumors of the death of scooters in India are greatly exaggerated. Indian scooter sales were slipping because only old designs were being offered to compete with modern motorbikes. Now that there are new or updated scooters on the market, like the Bajaj Chetak 4S , Kinetic’s Nova and HMSI (Honda Motorcycle and Scooter of India)’s Activa and Eterno, scoots are storming back:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/365729.cms
One India magazine compared the Eterno with a more expensive Hero Dawn motorbike and concluded the scooter had more to offer in every respect. (Text of article posted uncreditied in an act of web piracy here:
http://www.the-scooters-report.com/9648-electric-motorized-scooters.html
) India’s Business Standard Motoring recently awarded motorbike and scooter of the year honors, and said, ” We created a separate award for scooters because we believed that scooters would never outscore a motorcycle on our list of parameters. But the Honda Eterno is unmatched in its ability to do what is required of it. The result show up in the evaluation, where the Eterno actually outscores the best of this year’s motorbikes in the subjective and overall tallies!”
http://www.bsmotoring.com/2003/dec06_2.htm#scoo