Bajaj Auto bets on new Pulsar platform; Rajiv Bajaj says Chetak supply improving

The Pulsar has been one of the flagships of Bajaj Auto. Media reports have suggested that a new model has been spotted and it is reminiscent of the Pulsar 220F. In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Rajiv Bajaj, the MD of the company, confirmed the new launch.

“On the 20th anniversary of the Pulsar in November of this year, we are poised to launch the all-new Pulsar platform, which will, of course, start with the biggest Pulsar we have ever made," he said.

"Over the next 12 months, we will work its way down all the way to the smallest pulsars that we make. So, that is our biggest product move in the near future,” he added.

In the past few months, the bike manufacturer has struggled to meet the demand for Chetak. Bajaj accepted the challenges but added that things were improving.

“This fiscal we are struggling first and foremost, to ramp up production of the Chetak. If I remember, right, in the last financial year, after it was introduced to be made all of 1000 plus Chetak. In the first quarter, we made about 1000 Chetaks again. I am pleased to say that in July, we made and sold to our dealerships in Pune, Bangalore and Nagpur as many as 800," he said.

"We would like to do a whole lot more, whether we can do 5000, or 10,000, from a demand point of view is very difficult to say. But we simply cannot produce primarily as you are aware due to the shortage of semiconductors. So that is our first focus,” he said.

The semi-conductor issue has plagued the whole auto industry and the supply has been hit as a result.

“At a time when we are being told that the outlook will not change by much till the end of this fiscal in terms of semiconductor availability for various reasons, so the supply chain is a big mountain to climb," Bajaj said.

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