Eicher is taking a strategic stake in Stark Future SL, investing € 50 mn (apprx Rs 450 cr) in lieu of a 10.35% equity stake.
- Stark is a European electric motorcycle manufacturer, incorporated in Barcelona Spain, in July 2020 with specific focus in the area of performance electric motorcycles.
- It has recently launched the motocross bike, VARG and claims to have got 17,300 bookings in the last 11 months across three major markets USA, Western Europe and Australia. The commercial production of the bike is expected to commence in the first half of 2023.
- As per the website, VARG price starts from $12,900 (approx Rs 11 lakh) onwards.
Speaking about the transaction, Eicher’s MD, Siddhartha Lal said, “We love the vision, passion and focus of the amazing team at Stark Future. Leisure motorcycles do not easily lend themselves to EV technology at this stage, due to challenges like the battery range, packaging, weight and cost. This has resulted in stunted growth of this segment till now. Stark has been able to understand and harness the potential of EV technology by dramatically outperforming ICE offerings, without compromising on range, weight, packaging and cost. They have created an absolutely astounding motocross motorcycle – the Stark VARG as their entry into the EV world. We believe that Stark Future has the highest potential for real breakout growth in the EV leisure space with this model, and the potential to use this strong base to extend into other contiguous segments and beyond”
The comment does suggest that Eicher really liked what they saw at Spark. That’s per se is quite exciting given Eicher’s (and especially it’s MD’s) history of being selective about the products and the tie-ups.
However, given the small amounts involved and current FOMO in EVs, I would not read too much into this tie-up for now.