India Kawasaki to launch 200bhp Ninja H2 sportsbike on April 3

An aggressive India Kawasaki Motors (IKM) is all set to launch its supercharged sportsbike Ninja H2 early next month (April 3, 2015) in Delhi.

Once it is commercially launched, if statistics are anything to go by, the incoming Kawasaki Ninja H2 will be the most powerful superbike on Indian roads, and will be the most expensive superbike (in the 1-litre engine class) with an estimated on-road price of close to Rs 32 lakh.

Speaking to Autocar Professional, an IKM official revealed that “the company has imported very few numbers of the Ninja H2 in India as the bookings for this model were not open for all superbike buyers. Since the last few months, Kawasaki has been selecting only premium customers for this model, and hence the bookings numbers, as compared to other Kawasaki bikes, are very few.”

As the first batch of Ninja H2s has arrived, according to the source, IKM has imported less than 10 units of the Ninja H2 in India as completely built units (CBUs), and is most likely to place one at each of its standalone showrooms. As on January 29, 2015, IKM had five standalone showrooms in the country – Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.

The tech-laden Ninja H2, which was unveiled publicly for the first time by Kawasaki at the 2014 EICMA motor show in Milan, is powered by a four-stroke, liquid-cooled, in-line four-cylinder, 998cc powerplant supported by a centrifugal supercharger, which boosts the power output of the superbike. Reports suggest that the engine in the Ninja H2 develops a maximum power of over 200bhp.

The incoming Ninja H2 marks Kawasaki’s seventh fully imported superbike in its India portfolio with the other six being the Ninja 1000, Ninja ZX-10R, Ninja ZX-14R, Versys 1000, Z1000 and Z800. The other four models – Ninja 300, Ninja 650, ER-6n and Z250 – which are positioned in the growing midsized bike segment, are imported as completely knocked down units (CKDs) and are assembled at Bajaj Auto’s Akurdi (Pune) facility. While the Z250 is known to have a localisation rate of close to 40 percent, the bigger 650cc siblings use local content of up to 25-30 percent.

Interestingly, IKM had, on February 18, 2015, from its Pune-based showroom delivered 20 units of the Z800 model to its customers from Pune and Mumbai. It can be recollected that IKM had slashed the price of this model by Rs 50,000 in January earlier this year citing cost savings achieved at its Thailand plant, from where the model is imported. The Z800 costs Rs 735,000 (ex-showroom, Pune).

“The ex-showroom price reduction of the Z800 may be a bit more (over Rs 50,000) depending on local taxation (across states). The cost reduction happened mainly in Thailand where the Z800 is manufactured. This is done by Kawasaki, and is being forwarded to its customers,” the company release had stated.