On electric vehicle strategy, margin performance and market share pressure: I think the correlation between what we are doing in terms of strategy and the margin performance, is not a one-to-one, as some people are making it out to be. That is too simplistic. I have said again and again that margins are under pressure for everyone. It does not matter whether you are making trucks, cars or motorcycles. It is not only Bajaj Auto whose margins are under pressure for the last two-three quarters. Second, in our case particularly, we have lost out on realizing 70-plus rupees to a dollar, because we are hedged with upper limit of just under 70 to the dollar for FY19. So, that has had an impact. That is not small, given that exports are 40% of our production. So, if you keep these two factors aside, or rather take them into account, you will find that a lot of the margin pressure is explained by these two factors. Beyond that, in terms of the domestic motorcycle portfolio, it is just one stock keeping unit (SKU) of the CT that has been priced very aggressively for growth in the market. Let me give you some numbers for December. For example, last December, we as a company sold 110,000 motorcycles in the domestic market. We were looking to do 30-40-50% better than that this December. In November we had a growth of 45% year-on-year. December growth is driven by what? Our anticipation is it will be driven by 60% in Pulsar, 50-60% growth in Platina and 25-30% growth in CT. So, it is not like when we sell 200,000 motorcycles in India, 180,000 of them are CT, and that is what is driving the margins down. I think some people are seeing this too simplistically.

On production: For the first six months, our run rate was 4 lakh units between domestic and exports—motorcycle and three wheelers. In the last two months of the festive season, we clocked 500,000 units. In November, we were back to 407,000 units. I would like to believe that though the industry is softer right now and, therefore, 400,000 in these months is relatively better than what it was in the first half of the year. I would like to believe that we can certainly keep our nose above 400,000, but 450,000, especially if the industry does not perk up in January, it would be a challenge. However, that would be the zone of 400,000 to 450,000, maybe closer to 400,000, is what I can see right now.

On performance of Discover 100: In terms of position, Discover was bought by people who wanted a bike that offered mileage with a bit of power and fun—that was its perception, its imagine in the mind of the prospect. That is what differentiated it from Hero. The 100cc Discover was sold in large numbers since 2005 and it never created any problem for us as long as the communication, the message, was about the 125cc. I think the mistake we made was when we moved the messaging from 125cc to 100cc. Yes, in the end, it was about greed. The biggest problem for all of us, whether we are Bajaj Auto, or we are CNBC, is that we have to remind ourselves every day that we have to feed into the brand much more than we milk out of the brand. When we start milking the brand, more than we build or feed into it, that is the problem. The mistake of Discover has taught me a lesson for a lifetime. I will tell you who is responsible for this mistake, it is only two people. It is my best friend Balki (R. Balakrishnan), who at Lowe Lintas that time, and myself—the two of us decided to move the messaging to what was called ‘Discover India with the power of one litre’. The minute we did that we became a me too to Hero Honda of that time, and we lost the plot. That is what I referred to in Mumbai at a marketing conclave.

On future plans: I think the way we have come back strongly in that commuter segment with CT and Platina, and as I said, it is only one SKU of CT that is priced low, the rest are priced par to competition. We have demonstrated that we are able to come back, although we have yet not been able to fill the hole left by Discover. But let us see, we have some plans in the near future. As far as 19 years hence is concerned, nobody knows the future, but one of the bets we are placing for the future is that of electric vehicles and it might be a motorcycle or a scooter, because we are not interested in making another gasoline engine mass-market scooter, but a Tesla-like scooter. It would be quite befitting for this company. So, that might be sooner rather than later. We might do something interesting, so wait and find out. Before 2020 we will come up with something and, hopefully, it will be something exciting, something that people find worthy of the future 19. What I am saying is that definitely by 2020 we want to participate in creating a category of electric two-wheelers, but not at the low cheap and unreliable end of the market, but at the very high, prestigious luxury end of the market. Whether it will be a motorcycle or a scooter, I am not prepared to say yet. I am just letting it be known that it might well be a scooter. Although, if I may take a dig at some of my analyst friends, if you look at the current sales figure for the industry, people will now tell me instead of making scooters, I should make tractors.