Thanks to the placement of the ignition key in the Xtreme Sports, it will become very difficult to switch off the engine in stop-go traffic and hence Hero is now incorporating an engine kill switch in the bike.
You read it first on MotorBeam. Hero recently announced a new version of the Xtreme and named it the Xtreme Sports. It gets a 149.2cc air-cooled engine which produces 15.2 HP of power and 12.80 Nm of torque. The launch of this model was supposed to take place by 2014-end or 2015-beginning but the launch (prices have been announced but dealers haven’t received the bike) has been delayed thanks to a new issue that has cropped up. Most bikers have the habit of switching off their engines at long traffic signals, and due to the positioning of the ignition key in the Xtreme Sports, it would be very difficult for users to switch it off at every signal (one could stall the bike in gear though) and hence Hero is now adding an engine kill switch to the bike.
In other news, the regular Hero Xtreme isn’t performing really well. The company produces a meagre 1500 units of the bike every month and there is a high probability that it might even get discontinued (the Xtreme Sports might replace it) in the near future since people living in tier-2 and ties-3 cities don’t really like the new Xtreme as much as they preferred the old model. We have observed that Hero discontinues its bikes on very rare occasions and even the Achiever is still available on sale since it has been performing well only in Bengal because it is a cheap 150cc bike that comes with less maintenance.
Hero had temporarily stopped the Karizma’s production in December and produced zero units of the bike and still ended up with 4600 units of the bike lying in the company’s inventory in January. Hero will now re-commence production of the Karizma from February and the newer models are expected to come with improved refinement and lesser vibrations as compared to the current model. The Hero Karizma is powered by a single-cylinder, air-cooled 223cc engine, offered with carb and FI in the R and ZMR models respectively. It is priced from Rs. 85,776/- (ex-showroom, Mumbai).
