Motorcycle kinetics

Sometimes I think we (as in the human race) would save ourselves a lot of misery and effort if were to just be honest enough to realise that we really, deeply, truly sucked at something. And suspended all efforts at it, trusted division of labour and Darwinian selection to take care of it. Especially given that both of those factors/phenomena will ensure the sickly fruit of your efforts (at which you suck) will any case be rotten, will be superseded, made extinct.

I think we need an example. Take the scooter Harley-Davidson made for a while. It was called the Topper, and it was anything but. Now, I don't know the exact history of the product. But here's the point - it doesn't matter. Whether Harley realised they sucked at scooters and stopped making them, or were forced out of the market because no one wanted them is a moot point. There were better scooters around. Or no demand for them. Scooter died. There are, of course, thousands of other examples.

The point is, if you have the finances/will, you can keep bleeding money/time/effort into things you suck at. You can bravely say that 'eventually, I'm gonna get better.' And you can, but eventually, you need outside help.

YamOndaSuzuSaki needed people like Bimota to show them how to make motorcycles go around corners. Only then did their powerful, reliable engines actually begin to make sense. And mincemeat of the British, German and American opposition. They learnt. Sucky bikes became superbikes.

Now take the example of Kinetic in India. While I freely admit that theirs aren't the highest quality scooters in the country, they're decent machines all of them. Scooter ownership in the country doesn't exceed more than a couple of years, and for that much, all of them work without trouble. After that, inherent quality issues rear up and fading/failing plastic, various mechanical niggles aren't uncommon, and/or unexpected.

But they truly, deeply, faithfully suck at making motorcycles. In their entire history, I'm sorry to say, I have never seen a product that lived up to any sort of respectable standard. Usually, the said motorcycle would fail spectacularly at a whole bunch of parameters. It makes you wonder why that is. I believe it's because the chaps at Kinetic R&D have gotten so used to making scooters, that even their half-asleep products turn out half-decent.

But they know nothing about motorcycles. Zero. And anyone who has worked on making a motorcycle will tell you, that while both have two wheels and ferry people, scooters and motorcycles are very, very different in what constitutes a commercially successful design. So if you're 'stuck' in a scooter rut, you'd find it hard, if not impossible, to design an exciting, successful motorcycle. Which means, Kinetic needs to move on.

It needs to focus on scooters, ignore the fact that motorcycles are a bigger market by a humungous margin and get good at the scooter business. And they must to survive, for YamOndaSuzuSaki are aggressive and when they enter the scooter market, they'll wipe the floor clean if they can find weaknesses in the competition.

Or Kinetic must learn to make motorcycles. The easiest way to do that would be to hire a bunch of young engineers who are interested at a fundamental level in motorcycles and their development. Kids with some level of brilliance, an ability to thrive in seriously tough conditions (you don't expect the well-entrenched R&D chap to give them an easy time, do you?), and the drive to build classy motorcycles in the face of Bajaj, Honda and Hero Honda. The surer way would be to hire a third party design/engineering firm and faithfully follow their instructions. These are the only solutions to rebuilding Kinetic's currency in the motorcycle market.

A number of people who track Indian two-wheelers closely, that I've spoken to in the recent past, seem to confirm that while Kinetic is inking lots of good looking deals with the likes of SYM and Italjet and all, it is not moving fast enough. That Bajaj and Hero Honda are together, running much, much faster. And eventually, unless something drastic happens, will leave Kinetic (and anyone in a similar position) behind.