Mahindra had a 70% stake in Engines Engineering, the company that is helping in the development of engines for Hero’s Dare and Dash scooters and earlier supplied design inputs for engines of the Centuro.
You read it first on MotorBeam! Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp don’t really have an association with each other as such, even by a long shot, but then the title says Hero could be using Mahindra’s engine. Sounds confusing right? Let us clear the confusion for you now. Our sources tell us that Hero’s upcoming scooters, the Dash as well as the Dare will be using engines from the Italian firm Engines Engineering (Hero has partnered with this company), the same company that made engines for Kinetic and Mahindra 2-Wheelers. Mahindra took over Kinetic a few years back, venturing into the 2-wheeler space.
Simplifying things, Mahindra 2-Wheelers had a 70% stake in Engines Engineering (thereby being the owners) and had sourced engine design inputs for the Stallio/Centuro from the firm. Hero on the other hand partnered with the Italian engine making company back in 2012 to source engine technology after its break-up with erstwhile partner Honda which earlier provided the engines and other R&D for the company. With Hero’s new range of scooters scheduled to hit the market very soon, chances are that the engine powering the Dash will be similar to the one found on the Gusto, albeit with certain changes and in a different state of tune.
The Hero Dash will get a completely new 111cc engine producing 8.4 BHP of power and 9.4 Nm of torque, developed with inputs from Engines Engineering. The Dash will be competing against the Mahindra Gusto, Honda Activa, TVS Jupiter, Yamaha Alpha and the likes in the segment. The Hero Dare though is more of a Honda Activa 125 rival with the looks inspired from the Honda Dio and will be powered by a 125cc motor. This motor will be tuned to produce 9 BHP and 9.5 Nm of torque. The Hero Dare will have nothing in common with either Mahindra or Honda engines.
It is not for the first time that domestic automakers have shared engines with Mahindra directly or indirectly. Incidentally, both Mahindra and Tata Motors sourced inputs for their 2.2-litre diesel engine from a firm called AVL (which is also Hero’s other partner) in the past and have been using similar powertrains on the Scorpio and Safari respectively over the years. With engine sharing common among car makers, it now seems that the trend might just start in the two-wheeler sector as well.
Hero has three big partners for engine development, EBR for performance bikes, Engines Engineering for scooters and AVL for commuter motorcycles. The company also has a joint venture with Italy’s Magneti Marelli for fuel injection systems and thus we expect majority of Hero products to get FI in the not so distant future. FI technology will help Hero upgrade the fuel mileage and reduce the emissions of its bikes, thereby helping it comply with new emission norms.
