Royal Enfield working on a Multi-fuel Motorcycle

Days ago, we brought you buzz about Royal Enfield venturing into multi cylinder motorcycles. Now, we have yet another massive announcement that could redefine the motorcycling touring scene in India and many other parts of the world. Now, Royal Enfield isn’t exactly known for it’s radical innovations in the motorcycle world but the slew of announcements in the past few weeks have made us bolt up and take notice of the entirely new and uncharted path the relatively small outfit from Tiruvotttiyur, Chennai seems to be taking.

At the recently held 2011 New York Motorcycle Show, Royal Enfield’s new CEO Dr. Venki Padmanabhan has been quoted saying that Royal Enfield is developing a multi fuel, adventure touring motorcycle that could run on fuels like Petrol, Diesel and Kerosene. While such an option would be terrific as long distance touring motorcycles running on diesel are a motorcycle tourers delight due to the high fuel efficiency, modern technology could also make diesel/multi-fuel motorcycles a very reliable and powerful proposition as well.

Coming back to Royal Enfield’s plans, while petrol and diesel are plausible options given the injection technology to keep tailpipe emissions under check, kerosene as a fuel of choice still appears a far fetched option given the fact that very few such motorcycles have ever seen the light of the day. Interestingly, an American firm called Hayes Diversified Technologies does make diesel motorcycles for use by the US Army and was also in the process of launching a 650cc multi fuel civilian motorcycle based on the Kawasaki KLR650′s chassis, which could run on both diesel and aviation kerosene.

This promising project somehow doesn’t seem to have seen the light of the day, especially when it comes to civilian versions. Apart from HDT’s diesel range of military motorcycles, another company based in the Netherlands has been producing the Neander 800 Diesel Touring Motorcycle which while packing in plenty of new age technology, also carries a high price tag making it an expensive proposition for most motorcycle tourers.

All said, Royal Enfield has been making Diesel Motorcycles in the past, like the underpowered but highly efficient and rugged Enfield Taurus model. So, a multi-fuel touring motorcycle might not be too much of a round about for a company like Royal Enfield, whose motorcycles continue to heavily dominate the Indian touring scene. Here’s hoping that Royal Enfield manages to buck the trend and come up with an all purpose touring multifuel motorcycle that truly is the need of the day given the pace at which petrol prices seem to be continually heading northwards.