Bajaj Auto has announced its intention to place it’s 4-wheeler project RE60 into production soon. The Government of India has given the RE60 a green-go to be classified as a quadricycle. Initially, it will be a limited-run production while Bajaj Auto awaits the reports by a committee setup to study and validate the various norms of the ‘quadricycle’ category. This is a new category in the Indian market and the committee will finalize the safety and other regulations as well as several classification and specification norms for a quadricycle. The report is expected to take a few months to surface and only then Bajaj Auto will start mass production of the RE60.
Bajaj Auto claims that its motive with the RE60 was to create a distinctively different vehicle. Something which stands between three and four-wheelers and overcomes their negatives for basic city commute. The quadricycle just does that by having the basic functioning of a three-wheeler with the stability, features and safety of a car. The Bajaj RE60 is powered by a 200cc, 4-valve, water-cooled DTSi engine which is compliant with Euro IV emission norms and provides a power output of 20 BHP. The weight had to be proportional to the engine specifications and so the company has managed to maintain the kerb weight at 450 kgs thanks to Metal-Polymer hybrid structure.
The Bajaj RE60 will have a top-speed of 70 km/hr, can manage to return a mileage of about 35 km/l and will also have very low CO2 emissions. The RE60 will be manufactured at the Bajaj;s factory in Aurangabad and final pricing will be announced only after the norms are finalized. Bajaj Auto also has plans to export the small vehicle to other Asian countries as well as Africa and few Latin American markets.
The company was earlier deprived of partnership from Renault-Nissan on the RE60 project on grounds of the latter duo not satisfied with the final product. However, speculations are in the air that Bajaj could rope in the French-Japanese duo for the RE60 in the European markets.
