<p>Royal Enfield made headlines at EICMA with its new Interceptor INT 650 and Continental GT 650, both powered by the new four-stroke, SOHC, air-cooled, 648cc parallel twin-cylinder engine developed by the UK Technology Centre and Chennai teams. <strong>CEO</strong> <strong>Siddhartha</strong> <strong>Lal</strong> tells <strong>Rishaad</strong> <strong>Mody</strong> what went into developing the new platform, the heightened focus on quality, learnings from the Himalayan, and when the time comes, it could even think electric mobility.</p>

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How vital is the UK Technology Centre to Royal Enfield?

It is very important as regards getting to what we want from the brand. The Tech Centre was not set up to create a halo around the brand. If it does, that's brilliant and we'd be delighted but that's not the purpose. The purpose is that we make awesome motorcycles through this facility.

This is a rational decision, not an emotional one. We needed the type of competencies that we weren't getting in India. We have superb capabilities in India but there are some that we don't have. There are very few people who understand the design and development of, let's say, a higher-powered (not high-powered, but higher-powered) motorcycle. That's not just in terms of the engine but things like chassis dynamics, design and sophistication and maybe even, to some extent, industrial design. So, it's really important.

There's a tech centre coming up in India too. How do you strike the balance between the UK and home?

These are only physical centres and the balance already exists. The core team was initially always based out of India and all the products we've developed have come out of India. Then, we hired a UK team and have been building it.

As it happens, the global heads of Product Strategy (Mark Wells) and Product Development, (Simon Warburton) as well as the heads of chassis, engine and programme management all sit in the UK but they all have teams back in India and are working seamlessly with them.

Independently, the