Five years after Bajaj Auto Ltd. unveiled its quadricycle Qute, the automaker can expect the vehicle to ply on Indian roads soon.
That’s because the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways today issued a notification with emission requirements for such vehicles running on petrol or compressed natural gas, a category Bajaj Auto had been lobbying for. The Qute now needs to go through safety and emission tests, which typically takes a few weeks.
The automaker will assess the time of launch once the safety tests by the Automotive Research Association of India, and the final approval by the Road Transport Authority are in place, the office of Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj told BloombergQuint in response to an email.
Bajaj Auto said the Qute met “all global emission and safety regulations including those of Europe from Day 1” and called the delay in getting approvals for the vehicle “perplexing” and “disheartening.” The company has “adequate” capacity to meet the demand expected over the foreseeable future, it said.
It needs to be seen whether Bajaj Auto’s quadricycle is BS-IV compliant as the product was developed before the new standards kicked in, Shrikant Akolkar, research analyst for auto at Angel Broking, said in a note. In case of a positive regulatory ruling and at a 50 percent sales of its 25,000 units capacity in India, Bajaj can generate over 1 percent of its revenue from the Qute, the brokerage said. “We don’t believe that besides minor improving in the sentiment, there is not enough thrust in this to see a rally in the stock.”
The Qute, powered by a 217cc, single-cylinder motor, comes without most of the standard safety equipment on board. Norms for four-wheeler passenger cars in the country mandate safety checks, including frontal and side impact crash tests, which it failed.
Bajaj Auto had argued that its quadricycle was not a car, but a safer upgrade from autorickshaws. It would be wrong to test the quadricycle based on standards that are expected of cars, the company had said.
It targeted December 2017 launch, according to RC Maheshwari, president-commercial vehicle division. Maheshwari had said the company was working on an electric version but didn’t give a timeline.
In the absence of permits in India, Bajaj Auto had begun exporting the quadricycle to countries in Europe, Africa, South America, and the rest of Asia. Yet, the demand has yet to pick up. It shipped 1,556 units in the year ended March.
Shares of Bajaj Auto rose 0.8 percent today compared to a 0.2 percent gain in the NSE Auto Index.
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