Bajaj Confirms Its First Electric Motorcycle Is Coming, And India Won't Get It First

Bajaj Auto has given its clearest timeline yet for its long-rumoured electric motorcycle, and the plan carries a twist that will disappoint domestic buyers hoping to be first in line: the bike is headed overseas before it reaches Indian showrooms.

Quick Facts

What was actually said

Speaking on Bajaj Auto's Q1 FY27 earnings call, Thapar confirmed that development work on the company's first electric motorcycle is underway and progressing steadily, with a launch targeted for FY28 provided the timeline holds. Bajaj's priority, he said, will be "export markets first" before the bike comes home to India.

That sequencing isn't an afterthought, it reflects where Bajaj already makes its money. The company has historically leaned on exports for a large share of its two-wheeler volumes, with Africa alone accounting for roughly half of its overseas shipments and Nigeria the single largest market within that. Launching electric motorcycles abroad first lets Bajaj test the product and build volume in markets it already dominates, before bringing it into India's more crowded and price-sensitive electric two-wheeler segment.

A quarter that explains the confidence

The timing of the confirmation isn't incidental, it landed alongside a genuinely strong quarter, and a scooter business straining to keep up with its own demand. Bajaj Auto's consolidated revenue for Q1 FY27 (April-June 2026) rose 65% year-on-year to ₹21,688.83 crore, while profit after tax climbed 46% to ₹3,225.63 crore. Electric vehicles, including scooters and three-wheelers, made up close to 30% of the company's domestic revenue for the quarter, and, notably, the electric scooter business turned EBITDA positive this quarter, while electric three-wheelers are already running at double-digit EBITDA margins.

That profitability is the real story behind the motorcycle timeline: Bajaj is only committing to a new electric product line after proving its existing electric portfolio can make money, not before. It helps that demand is outrunning what Bajaj can currently build, Chetak sales have outpaced supply through the June quarter, pushing the company to lift monthly production capacity from 50,000 to 60,000 units as part of a wider 20% capacity expansion across the business. "We're now expanding capacities... to cater to the upswing in demand," Thapar said. Industry-wide electric two-wheeler volumes have climbed from roughly 120,000 units a month in FY26 to nearly 200,000 units a month by the end of June, by his account, the backdrop that makes a new electric motorcycle line look like a reasonable bet rather than a stretch.

Where Bajaj sits in the field

Royal Enfield already has a motorcycle on sale; four EV-native brands are established in the segment; Hero and TVS are working to broadly the same clock as Bajaj. On this table, FY28 doesn't read as bold, it reads as catching up to where the market already is.

Why it matters

Bajaj is playing this the way it has played every major product bet for a decade: prove profitability first, then scale. That discipline worked for the Chetak, which took years to turn a profit before becoming the demand problem it is today. But a motorcycle is a different bet, Royal Enfield already owns the electric-motorcycle narrative in India, and EV-native brands like Ultraviolette and Revolt aren't standing still while Bajaj tests export markets for two more years. By the time Bajaj's motorcycle reaches Indian buyers, the brand loyalty and word-of-mouth that usually decide two-wheeler purchases in India may already be spoken for. Financial caution is a defensible strategy for a balance sheet. It's a riskier one for a market where being early still counts for a lot.