Bajaj Auto is developing an all-new electric motorcycle platform, and on paper that sounds like a fairly ordinary headline. Another Indian company working on electrification, right? Except Bajaj isn’t just another Indian brand. It’s one of the most influential motorcycle players on the planet, and a lot of riders don’t even realize how deep its reach goes.
If you peel back the branding and look at the corporate machinery behind some of today’s biggest bikes, Bajaj is everywhere. It holds a majority stake in KTM AG, which also places it behind Husqvarna and GasGas. Anyone who has owned or ridden a KTM 390 Duke, RC 390, 390 Adventure, or a Husqvarna Svartpilen or Vitpilen 401 has already experienced Bajaj engineering. Those bikes were co-developed with Bajaj and built at Bajaj’s Chakan plant. They set a global benchmark for small-displacement performance and effectively changed what riders expect from sub-500cc machines.
The partnerships don’t stop there. Bajaj is also the key manufacturing and development partner for Triumph’s small-displacement lineup. The Speed 400 and Scrambler 400 X came to life through that collaboration, and both models are built in India with Triumph design and Bajaj industrial muscle. The result? Two globally praised bikes that offer real-world performance without the premium price tag.
That’s why Bajaj’s move to create its own in-house electric motorcycle platform is big news. This isn’t just a domestic EV experiment. This is the same company behind some of the most influential entry- and mid-displacement motorcycles of the last decade, now preparing its next-generation toolkit.
Rakesh Sharma, Bajaj’s Executive Director, says the company has a “vigorous R&D effort” covering everything from entry-level commuters to high-performance electric models. The point, he says, is to be ready for multiple demand scenarios in India and abroad. The platform pulls from Bajaj’s ICE engineering history and the learnings of Chetak Technology Ltd, which helped revive the Chetak scooter and push it to the top of India’s EV charts.
The timing is interesting. Royal Enfield is deep in its own electrification push and showed its latest electric prototype at EICMA 2025. Indian startups like Ultraviolette, Revolt, and Oben are sharpening their early advantages. Yet electric motorcycles in India still make up less than one percent of EV two-wheeler sales due to battery costs, range challenges, and a lack of mid-performance options. It’s a small market for now, but the groundwork is being laid for rapid change.
And here’s where the global impact kicks in. We’ve been hearing about the KTM E-Duke and Husqvarna E-Pilen for years. If Bajaj now has a scalable, flexible EV motorcycle platform developed in-house, it’s hard to imagine KTM and Husqvarna not tapping into that. The same goes for Triumph. Bajaj has already shown it can squeeze every drop of value out of a shared platform. The 390 series was pushed into naked, sport, and adventure roles and sold in almost every major market. The Triumph 400s are rolling out the same way.
So if Bajaj’s new electric platform is robust enough, don’t be surprised if it becomes the backbone for multiple brands worldwide. Whether the badge says Bajaj, KTM, Husqvarna, GasGas, or Triumph, the foundation could come from the same engineering pool in Pune.
For riders, that’s a good thing. More platforms mean more models, more price points, and more choice. If Bajaj’s EV strategy follows the same playbook as its ICE collaborations, the electric motorcycle market might finally get the diversity and performance that enthusiasts have been waiting for.
Source: AutoCar India
