No More Royal Enfield Bullet 500 and Thunderbird 500 in India?

• Published On: 15 January 2020
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The majority of Royal Enfield dealers throughout India have stopped accepting Bullet 500 and Thunderbird 500 bookings. Royal Enfield still hasn't upgraded its 500cc models to meet BS6 standards. The 500cc RE bikes could be cancelled and focused on the range 350cc and 650cc

Royal Enfield appears to be looking to pull the plug on its 500cc collection. The Royal Enfield​ Classic 500, Thunderbird 500, and Bullet 500 could be the first casualties of that decision. Royal Enfield dealers throughout India have stopped accepting such bike bookings. We don't have any specifics on when the Classic 500, Thunderbird 500, and Bullet 500 BS6 variants could be launched. This leads us to believe that the two bikes could be stopped before the BS6 emission standards come into effect in April

Royal Enfield revised the Classic 350 to meet new requirements, and the BS6 Himalayan will soon be introduced. The firm is also working on an all-new Classic which might have a bigger engine, potentially a 400cc unit. It is supposed to be more efficient than the current 350cc motorcycle and will probably match the 500cc motor output that makes 27.5PS and 41.3Nm.

There's reason to suppose that Royal Enfield is also focusing on a more competitive 650cc motorcycle named the Meteor, making it hard for the company to defend its 500cc model placement. In addition to this, prices of these bikes have been relatively low for a while. More so, after the introduction of the Interceptor 650 whose price is just Rs 49,000 higher than the Thunderbird 500's.

When you weigh in all of this, we think that it would make more sense for Royal Enfield to actually phase out its 500cc bikes instead of spending time and money updating its 500cc engine to meet BS6 requirements