Hero MotoCorp launched the Splendor+ BioFlex and HF Deluxe BioFlex on June 3, 2026, making them the first two-wheelers in the country capable of running on E85. Both are based on 100cc platforms and are priced at a modest premium over the standard variants. Hero’s CEO Harshavardhan Chitale stated at the launch that the company could roll out flex-fuel variants across its entire motorcycle portfolio in one to two years, subject to fuel availability and pricing. He also confirmed that the motorcycles are technically capable of being calibrated for E100 if required.
Hero MotoCorp currently sells around 12 distinct motorcycle models. The portfolio spans 100cc to 200cc and covers everything from commuters like the Passion and Glamour to the Xtreme 160R and XPulse 200.
Extending flex-fuel capability across all 12 would require ECU recalibration, modified fuel system components, and validation testing for each model. Hero has said this is technically ready. The bottleneck, by its own admission, is not the engineering but the fuel supply chain.
A flex-fuel motorcycle can run on any blend from E20 to E85, but it needs access to E85 at the pump to deliver any running cost benefit over a standard E20 motorcycle. Currently, E85 is available at 48 retail outlets across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur. The government’s target is 500 outlets by December 2026 and 5,000 by December 2027.
At 48 outlets today across four cities in a country with over 80,000 fuel stations, the practical reach of E85 is negligible. A buyer in Lucknow, Coimbatore, Kolkata, or Jaipur has no access to E85 at any fuel station. For those buyers, a flex-fuel motorcycle is simply a slightly more expensive standard motorcycle that runs on E20, which is available everywhere. The flex-fuel premium is currently a capability with no practical use outside four cities.
Click here to read why flex fuel doesn’t make sense at current prices
E85 is priced at Rs 82.12 per litre in Delhi at launch. E20 petrol is approximately Rs 95 per litre in Delhi. A 100cc Hero motorcycle on E20 returns around 70 kmpl. On E85, with its lower energy content, efficiency drops approximately 20 to 25 per cent, to around 52 to 56 kmpl.
At those numbers, the cost per kilometre on E85 is Rs 1.47 to Rs 1.58, against Rs 1.36 per kilometre on E20. Running E85 in a flex-fuel Hero is marginally more expensive per kilometre than running E20 in the standard version, at current pricing. For E85 to be cheaper per km, it would need to be priced around Rs 72 per litre or lower.
Hero’s two-year timeline for full portfolio conversion is therefore primarily a bet on the fuel infrastructure expanding and the price differential widening in E85’s favour. If both happen, the flex-fuel platform becomes economically meaningful for buyers.
If fuel availability stays concentrated in a few cities and E85 pricing does not fall further, the programme remains more relevant as policy compliance than as a consumer value proposition.
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