Bajaj RE60 evolution: Over two years journey from scratch to prototype

One might just pass off Bajaj RE60 as an extremely low cost car, one of the cheapest four-wheelers in the country. But, many few know what went behind the scenes to evolve out with the four-wheeler Bajaj RE60 which many of us still find it difficult to call it a ‘car’ yet. The head of R&D team A Joseph of Bajaj Auto has been kind enough to share the details with us as to what kind of challenge they had to face to develop the car which could also serve the purpose of a passenger car besides coming handy as a commercial vehicle.

The top priority was to get the cost right. The ultra-low cost vehicle was what they had in mind right from the beginning when they tied-up with Nissan and Renault. Despite many efforts to impress the duo, they felt they better change the strategy and come up with something they are already pro in. Let’s get into the targets what they had in mind to see what a great show Bajaj has put to bring about what we see as RE60 today. The mileage of 35 kmpl to suit the Indian car demands was a clear cut road to success and car on an overall had to be under 400 kg to make it most fuel efficient.

But, then they could not make use of the aluminium metal as it drives up the cost of the vehicle. Many of us know the usage of steel alloy is heavier but it’s all they have. While they compromised on this, another issue popped up. The Bajaj RE60 features an engine on the rear end of the car just like in Tata Nano. The engine needs to be flat because they did not want the rear seat passenger to climb on a hill while getting into the car. Also, the they required to keep the rear seats down. Then their target was to squeeze out maximum space possible to make the driving on the car worthwhile. Then dawned the beginning of the new day for Bajaj Auto which unveiled the Bajaj RE60 on January 3rd. The production-ready model is just waiting to break free into the Indian car market with a Bajaj RE60 price of around Rs 1.50 lakh.

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