Introduction:
Kinetic Engineering Ltd. is the pioneer (in this country) of automatic
transmission. Be it centrifugal clutch (as in Luna) or sector-pulleys
(variator / CVT as in KiHo). And it shows. When every other moped
maker was using centrifugal clutch transmission in its mopeds, Kinetic
used a variator in its Luna Magnum. That was a bold move, way ahead
of its time. Then again, 16 years ago, when everybody else (HH,
Escorts, TVS) was going into large wheeled mobikes, Kinetic decided
to go into small wheeled automatic scooters==The Kinetic Honda scooter.
Bold move. Ahead of it’s time. The Kinetic Honda Scooter went
on to establish world records. Endurance record of non-stop driving,
done at Sarasbaug, Pune 10 years ago. Khardungla, (highest motorable
road in the world) done around the same time. Sahara Desert crossing
in 1992. Dunno what else, but the KiHo went on to become (and still
is) a milestone in Indian two-wheeler annals. Almost a cult bike.
What Harley Davidson is to Macho-giri, KiHo is to ease-and-convenience-giri.
Thus when KEL got into larger wheeled bikes such as GF 125 and Challenger,
I kept wondering where are the Hi-Q automatic scooters this company
is famous for?
 And
as if to answer my question came the NOVA. I saw some getting-out-of-school
type of kids in my area riding an extremely good-looking scooter
which I had not seen before. Before I could ask them what it was,
they themselves came to me and said, “Sir, ride this scooter
and tell us what you think?” So I rode it and I thought. The
ride was excellent but the thought was not.
The ride was excellent because the Nova is excellent. But the thought
was NOT excellent bcoz “How come the kids were riding this
bike before it came to me for test?” My ego was hurt. But
then old habits die hard. Even the young top management of Kinetic
seems to believe more in hard-copy print media than in e-media.
Like I said, old habits die hard, even among youngsters. Fact is,
two wheelers are much more a youth thing than a car. A study done
by Web Academy, a web research outfit found that two-wheeler users
are SIX TIMES more likely to be net users than four wheeler users.
Though print media is not exactly dying, web media is growing at
a much faster rate and this rate is going up day by day.
Further, if and when a youngster wants to make a buying decision,
he is more likely to log on to the web and pose a query on a LIVE
site like cybersteering from the comfort of his home, so that he
gets up to date, CURRENT information rather than something published
months ago. He is less likely to go to the local bookstore to get
a magazine that published its test report (maybe months ago) since
it requires physical effort to travel to the bookstore and pay Rs.30/-
for the magazine. It is even less likely that he would know exactly
in which issue the test report was published, and almost certainly
would NOT get that particular issue, since bookstores keep only
current-month magazine issues. This is almost exactly what happens,
and in such cases the web, and specially, LIVE sites like cybersteering
are the only source of on-the-spot information. |
