Yamaha Ray, FZ-S & Fazer Discontinued From the Indian Market

Yamaha has silently trimmed its commuter profile in India, discontinuing the Ray 113cc scooter, carburetted FZ-S and the semi-faired Fazer 150cc motorcycles. All three products have also been removed from the manufacturer's website. We also spoke to the company about the same and it confirmed the development.

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With new and improved alternatives already on sale in the market, it isn't surprising that Yamaha India chose to discontinue the slow-selling models. Starting with the Ray, the Japanese bike maker's scooter was launched in 2012 and the company was quick to expand its gearless lineup in the coming years with the Ray Z, Alpha and more recently the Fascino. The latter though has turned out to be quite popular with the masses courtesy of its design, despite being priced at a premium of around Rs. 4000 over the Ray.

The discontinuation of the Ray scooter also hints towards Yamaha introducing the new Ray ZR that was unveiled at the 2016 Auto Expo earlier this month. A sportier derivative based on the Ray, the Ray ZR uses the same 113cc Blue Core single-cylinder engine and gets sporty aesthetics to compete against the likes of Honda Dio in the segment. The new scooter also gets alloy wheels and a front disc brake on the range-topping version. While the company hasn't revealed a launch date yet, it is expected to arrive in the first half of this year.

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Coming to the motorcycles, it is believed that the new Yamaha FZ-S and Fazer FI V2.0 have taken the baton forward very well and are popular sellers in the segment. As a result, the company decided to retire the carburetted versions altogether. That said, the base FZ (FZ-16) is still on sale. In a similar exercise last year, Yamaha India had discontinued five models together in the country including the SS 125, SZ-RR, YBR 110, YBR 125 and the SZ-S.