Bajaj Exceed, the new 125cc bike from Bajaj, promises to have a 109 kmpl mileage. Bajaj Exceed, to be launched in early September 2006, will have the highest mileage among all bikes in India, said Bajaj Auto.

Bajaj Exceed will use a new technology called DTS-Si, said Bajaj Auto. The acronym DTS-Si stands for Digital Twin Spark Swirl Ignition.

Bajaj spotted an opportunity in the lower-cc segment, dominated by Hero Honda. Bajaj Auto is a close second in the entry level market. The company had earlier said that it plans to leave the 100cc bike business for the higher-margin models like Bajaj Pulsars.

After Bajaj Exceed, the company may launch several new bikes based on the same DTS-Si technology.

Bajaj Auto claimed in a news conference that the revolutionary DTS-Si has been completely developed by the R&D department at Bajaj Auto.

The existing technology platform used by Bajaj Auto for its bikes is called DTS-i.

At the press conference, Bajaj Auto's R&D Head Abraham Joseph explained the development of the DTS-Si engine. During the DTS-Si engine development process, Bajaj Auto R&D team noticed that at light loads in earlier DTS-i engines, there was scope to better the fuel combustion process. While combusting lean air-fuel mixtures with the two spark plugs, Bajaj managed to further improve the combustion conditions by generating high turbulence in the combustion chamber. Once the solution was arrived at, the design and geometry modifications followed.

Bajaj Exceed bike is aimed to lure more customers away from the 100cc market. The company has not specified the engine specifications of the Bajaj Exceed. There are no photos or pictures of the Bajaj Exceed available so far. The price of Bajaj Exceed is likely to be around Rs 42,000. (ex-factory price)

Bajaj Auto has about 47 per cent market share in 125cc and 150cc bike segments, as compared to a smaller share of 24 per cent in the declining but bigger 100 cc segment.

Production of Bajaj Exceed kicks off at the company's Aurangabad plant from tomorrow. Bajaj plans to produce 20,000 Exceed bikes next month, which will be hiked to 50,000 a month from November. Production will go up further once output starts at the Uttaranchal plant. More and more companies are moving out of Maharashtra to states like Uttaranchal, which offer tax holidays for new manufacturing units.

Many automakers in India, including Bajaj Auto, have cut production in the last couple of months, since buyers have been postponing bike purchases due to rising interest rates. With the Bajaj Exceed launch, the company hopes to tide over the lean season.

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