Royal Enfield Bullet 500, Thunderbird 500 No More?

• Most Royal Enfield dealers across India have stopped accepting bookings for the Bullet 500 and Thunderbird 500.
• Royal Enfield hasn’t updated its 500cc models to comply with BS6 norms yet.
• The 500cc RE motorcycles could be discontinued to focus on the 350cc and 650cc range.

It appears that Royal Enfield is looking to pull the plug on its 500cc range. The first casualties of this decision could be the Classic 500, Thunderbird 500 and Bullet 500. Royal Enfield dealerships across India have stopped accepting bookings for these motorcycles. They have no information on when the BS6 iterations of the Classic 500, Thunderbird 500 and Bullet 500 might be launched. This leads us to believe that the two motorcycles could be discontinued before the BS6 emission norms take effect in April.  

Royal Enfield has updated its Classic 350 to meet the new norms and the BS6 Himalayan will be launched soon. In addition, the company is working on an all-new Classic which could have a larger engine, possibly a 400cc unit. It is expected to be more powerful than the current 350cc motorcycle and is likely to match up to the performance of the 500cc motor that makes 27.5PS and 41.3Nm. 

There is reason to believe that Royal Enfield is also working on a more affordable 650cc motorcycle called the Meteor, making it difficult for the company to justify the positioning of its 500cc models. On top of this, sales of these motorcycles have been pretty low for a while. Even more so after the launch of the Interceptor 650 whose pricing is just Rs 49,000 more than that of the Thunderbird 500.  

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When you factor in all of this, we believe that instead of spending time and money to update its 500cc motor to comply with BS6 norms, it would make more sense for Royal Enfield to simply phase out its 500cc motorcycles. Do you think Royal Enfield will discontinue the 500cc range? Let us know in the comments section below.