Why Honda's CBR 150R is not selling well ?

 By: Pranit    01:12  No comments

CBR 150R looks almost exactly like 250 R from side profile

Right from the introduction of CBR 150R in 2012 , baby cbr's sole purpose of birth was to take on Yamaha's razor sharp R15. CBR have Mighty 150 CC motor 4 valve with dual overhead camshafts everything seems all right until we compare sale figure of baby CBR with R15. From the very beginning CBR 150R has been selling 200 units every month with respect to 3000 units of R15.

 let's see stronger points of CBR 150R
shorter wheelbase for quick direction flick ability.
close loop fuel injection for precious fueling.
Dual overhead camshaft for quicker revving engine.
balance riding position for corner attacks as well city commute . 
And that's all about it nothing out of box. compare to this,

Yamaha R152.0 side profile look's like race ready super bike

Yamaha's R15 have greater overall advantage.
Aggressive stance, bike looks absolute beauty from every angle, it's proper track focus bike. Yamaha India have took customer's feedback very seriously and created magic out of canvas in form of R15 v 2.0.
Longer cast aluminum swing arm for better high speed stability.
Top notch switches quality (CBR150R don't even have engine kill switch)
Good torque availability in city.
link mono shock provides better stability on corner.
Dual headlamp at front.
lower price tag.
 

CBR 150r instrument cluster

So where did Honda went wrong with CBR 150R ?
  first of all bike is expensive than handsome looking r15
Switches quality is substandard  and kill switch is absent which is essential feature.
Bike have very bad city drivability due to 2 main reasons first of all its bore is 63.5mm and stroke is 47.2mm which give's this bike very short stroke nature motor add to that duel over head camshaft becomes recipe for high revving motor, these two things together make almost non existence torque in lower rev range till 7000 rpm, believe me in city traffic even passion plus feels better bike than CBR 150R , peak power comes at 10,500rpm thus you really need to wring the throttle to squeeze out of that engine. Inversely this turns out advantage on highway's cause this motor just goes on and on even after it's redline, motor is absolute smooth.
Bike look's very similar to CBR 250R in fact one may get misunderstood it as CBR 250R  which is itself looks like VFR. So biggest tragic thing happened with this CBR is, it looks like VFR rather than Fireblade.