Hello and welcome to PowerDrift. You know what these motorcycles are right? That's the brand new
Bajaj Pulsar F250 and this is the new N250. Now their arrival in the market signals that Bajaj
is moving on from the current Pulsar platforms to new ones, but because of where we are right now,
which is a transitional phase where the old Pulsars still exist, where motorcycles like
the NS make almost the same kind of power from a 200cc, liquid-cooled engine, because we've not
seen what the replacement Pulsars are going to be like, there were a lot of questions. It doesn't
help that Bajaj actually has a phenomenal range of 250s, there's the Dominar, there's the two of
these, there's the KTMs, there's the Husqvarna, so there is a lot of confusion and you've been
asking us questions about these motorcycles, so in this video, what we're going to do
is answer specifically, questions that you've been asking and the most common question by far is,
should you be buying the Dominar 250, or should you be considering one of these two?
Honestly, in terms of what they feel like to ride, they're substantially different motorcycles.
In terms of numbers and performance, there are a couple of surprises in there. So this is a
fairly refined engine, there's no doubt about it, but I suspect that the Dominar 250 will feel more
refined than this, that's difference number one. The second difference is that the Dominar's
spread of power, remember that engine is coming from the other side, from the KTM side of the
family in terms of being liquid-cooled and all of that, more importantly, it also has a more linear
spread of power, so the transition from torque to horsepower is smoother on that motorcycle, whereas
these two were designed to be city motorcycles, they were designed to produce a lot of torque,
and from 3500rpm to 7000rpm, either of these two motorcycles feel effortless, but after 7000rpm,
the way they make power, they're not week after that, but the way they make power is substantially
different. To me, that is the biggest difference in character between these two motorcycles, but,
these two motorcycles weigh 160-164 kilos, whereas the Dominar pushes 180. So in that sense, if you
look at the torque to weight ratio, the Pulsars have a better torque to weight ratio as well.
Then when you consider the frame, the Dominar is more like a power cruiser,
these are more like normal motorcycles, there are so many differences that even though the
numbers look similar, and even though there is a 30,000-35,000-rupee difference in price,
they are not motorcycles that cross over, they don't do the same job.
The confusion is about what kind of motorcycle you'd like to have in your garage, not really the
F or the N and the D. So my suggestion is, go to the showroom, take a test ride on the D, on the F,
on the N and see which of these three motorcycles suits what is in your head in terms of the
motorcycle you're trying to bring home, because honestly, while a lot of numbers look the same,
the brands on the tank are coming from the same family of motorcycles and all of those things,
they're not similar at all. If you were to ask me of these three motorcycles what I would buy,
I would probably end up with one of these two motorcycles because at least in terms of role,
to me, these are clearer motorcycles, they are slightly sporty commuters,
whereas I'm still a little bit confused as to what exactly the Dominar 250 is for.
The next question you asked us comes directly from the video we made from the press conference
where these two motorcycles launched, where I told you that these motorcycles had VRA or
variable rumour activation and one of those rumours was variable valve activation. Now,
the thing with variable valve activation is that I'm convinced that all manufacturers are working
at some amount of technology in that direction for sure and that means Bajaj R&D is probably
also working on VVA, if they haven't already finished their work on VVA, right, whatever they
want to call it, the reason to do VVA is because if you look at the valves on a four-stroke engine
like these, valves open and close to control the arrival and departure of gases, right,
you can control them in terms of how large the openings are in terms of how much the valves open,
you can control them in terms of how long they stay open and you can also control the overlap,
which is the small amount of time when the intake and the exhaust valve are both open simultaneously
but, the time at which and the time duration for which the valves open is fixed.
So if they wanted to tune the engine for horsepower, they'd have to choose a set of
valve timings that work only for that and that's a compromise on torque. On these motorcycles,
Bajaj has clearly chosen valve timings that make torque happen, and therefore there might
be a slight compromise at horsepower. The idea of variable valve actuation is to be able to have a
series of settings of valve timings so that you can optimise it at multiple places in the rev range.
To give you an example of VVA from the R15 where the term VVA actually comes from its branding,
technically, is it has a two stage system, so it has one set of timings that work at the bottom
end, which produces torque and then it switches to another setting which makes the horsepower happen.
If you take another example, like Ducati's DVT system which comes on the Multistrada,
that's a continuously variable system, so there's not two settings there's a whole bunch of settings
that the engine can access to ensure that it makes maximum torque and maximum horsepower,
that's the spectrum of what is possible in the universe of variable valve actuation.
Why would these two motorcycles need it at all? Because there are two things in play here,
well, technically three, first, deploying new technology to motorcycles is an expensive process.
There's a cost of developing the technology, patenting that technology,
then comes the question of actually putting it into production, which requires validation and
verification, which requires suppliers to come on board and all of that drama
and then of course, it gets on the motorcycle, and then you have to pay for that delta as well.
What we know about these two motorcycles is, one, they were built to a cost, the idea that
they would be Rs. 1.4 lakh was very, very early on in the design process, that was already fixed.
The second is, they were always designed to replace the 220F, which is a motorcycle that
talks primarily about its torque, that's how you remember it, it was the world's fastest Indian,
it did make a substantial amount of horsepower back in the day, but today, these will still
be Pulsars, they're not Dominars, or whatever brand Bajaj is planning to have sit above that,
from that perspective, a motorcycle like this, which has a singular role, think about it,
to make a lot of torque, what would it do with VVA at all? So, if I were to be able to, let's say,
update the NS200 tomorrow, let's say I was trying to make an NS250, if this is already
making 24.5bhp, let's assume that the NS250 has to make at least 30bhp to be like the all singing,
all dancing Pulsar that we think the NS is, in that event, I would have to tune that engine for
a lot of horsepower. Adding something like VVA would allow me to bring back a lot of torque and
make a substantially nicer motorcycle to ride, that's when you deploy a technology like that.
Does that mean that I'm saying that the new NS250 will have variable valve actuation? No,
that's a decision that Bajaj R&D will take because there is a cost implication to it,
there is a complexity implication to it, there is the idea that a whole bunch of Bajaj service
mechanics will have to deal with a system like that. So it's not an easy decision to make,
it's their decision to make, but that's the kind of motorcycle where I would imagine a
technology like this would give you a direct benefit, not these. The next question we got is,
why are they not liquid-cooled? Well, we have a detailed video on PowerDrift
Simplified that talks about how engine thermal stability is managed, whether it is air-cooled,
oil-cooled, or liquid-cooled and in these cases, N and F, they're making 24.5bhp from a 250cc engine,
it's not a lot of strain and therefore there is not a big challenge for the thermal
stability management system. If Bajaj were to add liquid-cooling to this, you'd get the componentry,
which is radiators, hoses, the water pump, and all of those kinds of things, A, B, they'd have to
design in the water jackets to this engine, which raises the complexity of manufacturing as well as
the cost you pay and therefore the only benefit you'd really get is that liquid-cooled engines,
because of the water around the engine and stuff, are a little bit quieter than normal engines.
They wouldn't actually be a performance benefit, it would only raise your cost.
In this case, it is an oil-cooled system, so if there is an oil cooler, there is some
plumbing around, but more importantly, Bajaj has redesigned the oil-cooling system a little bit,
so instead of the oil splashing around, which is the first stage of oil cooling, there are actually
jets that are pointed to specific hot places in the engine which needs to be kept cool and in my
experience, no motorcycle on sale anywhere in the world that I can think of has ever come out into
the real world where you actually had a problem with the engine having a thermal stability issue
after the manufacturer has validated and verified that the motorcycle actually works. Riders can
sometimes have a thermal stability issue where they feel like the motorcycle's too hot between
their legs, for example in heavy traffic, but I've very, very rarely seen a situation where
a motorcycle comes to a halt on the side of the road and it becomes legend that if you ride this
motorcycle, you go into a situation like this, it will overheat and stop, that doesn't happen. So
as far as I'm concerned, I don't care what thermal stability management systems are being deployed to
my motorcycles, as long as they work, we are okay. The next question we got is, is it designed to
replace the 220F? Well, honestly I don't know why there is confusion on this but Bajaj I think could
have addressed it more directly. The whole point of these two motorcycles is to replace the 220F.
We were told by our sources that Bajaj has officially closed the production of the 220F now,
whatever motorcycles are on trucks headed to the dealers or leaving the factory right now whatever,
those plus whatever is already at dealer forecourts or stockyards are the only 220Fs
left on the market. Another question, why doesn't it have sixth gear? Okay, the reason why a gearbox
exists on motorcycles and cars at all is because internal combustion engines have a little bit of a
sensitivity to rev ranges and if I were to couple one of these engines directly to a driven wheel,
this would be a very very difficult mechanism to control. A gearbox is a control mechanism
that translates the revs on the engine to the speed at which the wheel rotates and makes that
process controllable. This can be difficult, if I take an engine and I start expanding the range
over which it makes substantial power, remember, that's what happened when we went from two-strokes
to four-strokes, as you expand that range, your need for that many ratios to be able to manage
the engine starts to diminish, at the very other extreme, if you think about electric vehicles,
which make all of their torque all of the time, some of the world's fastest EVs, like the Tesla
have one or two speed gearboxes, right, that's the spectrum of what's going on right now.
Now think about these two motorcycles, they were designed to produce a lot of torque,
so whether you're at 3500rpm plus or below 7000rpm, this motorcycle is making substantial
performance and that means you have a really wide power band and that means whether you're in
second, third or fourth, the motorcycle is going to move forward roughly at the same rate, you're
not going to suffer a lack of power, in which case, you don't need so many gear changes, you
don't need the sixth gear, that's reason one of why I believe that these motorcycles don't have a
sixth gear. But there is a second side to it, as I understand it, when these motorcycles were a brief
on a whiteboard somewhere in Bajaj, it was already clear that these would be five-speed gearboxes,
because remember, their job is to replace the 220F. The third side, which you should know
is that, at the design stage, when a manufacturer decides to make a four-speed, five-speed or a
six-speed gearbox, the actual delta cost between these three designs is not honestly that much.
So had Bajaj chosen to give these a six-speed gearbox, I don't believe that the price of this
motorcycle would have gone up with any significant way. And in that sense, I know what you're saying,
I don't see that there is a functional benefit of sixth, but I do think that Bajaj could have
very easily done a six speed gearbox for this if they really wanted to. But the question is, if we
were to add a sixth gear to this motorcycle, what would you gain from it? Now, at the design stage,
most manufacturers will design the bottom ratio of the gearbox and the top ratio of the gearbox
first and then fill in the ratios to figure out how they want to spread the gearing, right,
from that perspective, if these Pulsars were to have a sixth ratio, what you'd get is something
that sat between the first and where fifth is now at rather than an additional ratio that you might
be able to use on a highway to cruise at a higher speed, so from that perspective again, there is no
real benefit to you having a sixth gear. The next question we got, and they're all Bajaj questions
in that sense is, these motorcycles or the NS and RS? I would say the confusion is coming from the
fact that this is a brand-new platform that starts a new line of Pulsars and unfortunately for Bajaj
in that sense, this is making roughly the same kind of performance numbers that the NS and RS is,
but that's like saying, this orange is very sweet and this apple is very sweet as well.
They're both sweet, but that doesn't mean that the same thing, okay. So the NS and RS, to me are
specialist Pulsars in the sense that they take the sporty end of performance very seriously, it's all
about top-end rush and all of those things, and the handling is of a very higher order,
it's a very different motorcycle from these. These might also be 25bhp motorcycles, but,
these are 100% commuters and in nature, they are very, very different from the NS and the RS.
So what we're seeing is a transition where the first of the new Pulsars have come,
and the rest of the line is old, so in my head, I'm not worried about the NS/RS and 250 and
all of this crossover because remember, these replace the 220, replacement one,
but that means the Pulsar 180, Pulsar 150, NS125, NS160, Pulsar 125, NS200, RS200,
all of those motorcycles will be replaced by all new Pulsars that start at this new platform. Will
it be based on this engine in size and then scaled down and up, is a decision that we'll find out
from Bajaj. Will it have the exact same chassis, it can't, right? Because the roles are slightly
different, the sizes are different, the weights are different, their performance is different,
but all of them will be replaced. So what we are seeing is the old NS which has similar numeric
specification to this motorcycle, but it's the old NS, it's when the new NS comes out that the valid
question will come whether you buy this or this because right now, it's just a product line that
is in transition. Just go to the showroom and test ride them, they're very, very different.
The last question we got is that, do these motorcycles feel slow? And the honest answer
to that is they can feel slow, although they are not slow and the reason I say that is because
these motorcycles are really effortless. So when we were filming the first ride story that you've
already seen, Varun and I left the plant which is in Chakan, and there is this road, which is
about 11 kilometres long, it has first, a series of villages and then it's really busy town road,
there's shops on both sides, there's schools and colleges and there's a lot of cross traffic plus
truck traffic coming out of the Chakan industrial area. Going down that road, the surprise for us is
that we were able to leave these two motorcycles in I think third or fourth gear and manage more or
less all of those 11 kilometres with just rolling on and rolling off the throttle, there is that
much torque. Riding like that feels so effortless that it can feel slow, but if you think about what
we were doing, at the slowest parts of traffic we were still doing 35-40 kilometres an hour,
when the traffic opened up a little bit between the villages for example, we were doing 70
kilometres an hour, but we were not really working very hard, which can feel slow, but my feeling is
because they are so easy to ride, because they demand so little from the rider, these
motorcycles will always feel a little bit slow and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing,
because if you're a thinking motorcyclist applying your skills well, a motorcycle that sort of stays
a little bit in the background gives you more room in your head to think about what's going on,
so it's not automatically a bad thing, I don't think they're slow, but I understand the question,
they can feel slow. And that just about wraps it up, thank you so much for watching. If you'd
like us to do more of these videos, where we answer your questions about new motorcycles,
please do leave us a comment. If there's other questions you have about these two motorcycles,
the 250F and the N250, I keep calling it the 250F well, can't seem to get over that, if you
have more questions about the F250 and the N250, do leave us a comment, we'll get right on those
and there's anything else you'd like to discuss, leave us a DM on our Instagram,
and let's have a discussion. Thank you so much for watching, this is PowerDrift, I'd like you to hit
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