Think of the last stretch of your journey — the bit between the metro station and your door, the crowded lane where a car simply does not fit, the city trip that is too short for a motorcycle and too long to walk. Hero MotoCorp has been thinking about exactly those in-between moments, and at EICMA 2026 in Milan on 3 November 2026, it showed what it has built for them. The company introduced Novus Labs, its dedicated future-mobility innovation hub, and presented the NEX range as working prototypes — a foldable personal vehicle, a stable three-wheeled trike, and a tiny two-seater micro-car, each designed around a different kind of Indian city journey.
The NEX 2 electric trike, pairing two-wheeler agility with three-wheel stability. (Image: Hero MotoCorp)
Novus Labs is a Chairman-led hub with a deliberately different starting point. The company says it starts from people rather than products: it explores unmet mobility opportunities, experiments with solutions, and executes them as working prototypes. The hub first appeared as the Novus Series at EICMA 2025, and its NEX range went on to win the Red Dot Design Concept Award 2026. At EICMA 2026, that work stepped out of the concept stage — NEX 1 and NEX 2 arrived as working prototypes, ready to be ridden and judged in the real world.
NEX 1: the vehicle you carry
NEX 1 is built for the fragmented, in-between stretches of a journey. The company says it folds from a carried object into a rideable one — a personal, portable and compact electric vehicle that you can take with you and unfold when the road opens up. With a top speed of 15 km/h and a range of 20 km, it is made for short last-mile hops: the station to the office, the parking bay to the market, the campus run that is just too far to walk. Shown last year as a concept, it returns at EICMA 2026 as a new, improved working prototype.
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NEX 1 folds from a carried object into a rideable vehicle for last-mile journeys. (Image: Hero MotoCorp)
NEX 2: agility with stability
NEX 2 takes the thrill and manoeuvrability of a two-wheeler and adds the safety, stability and utility of three wheels. The company describes it as an agile, stable and multi-use trike, now moving into its next stage of development. The company says it targets a range of more than 150 km under the WMTC cycle and a top speed above 100 km/h, with generous storage space — the kind of machine that could carry a rider and their cargo across a city and beyond it, without asking them to choose between fun and practicality.
NEX 3: a car, shrunk for the city
NEX 3 completes the range as a sleek, all-weather personal electric vehicle with the safety and comfort of four wheels. It seats two — driver in front, passenger behind — behind a single gullwing door that opens upwards, and the company says it is designed to accommodate air conditioning and smartphone connectivity. Built for short urban journeys and everyday commuting, it offers an alternative to two-wheelers for city travel while taking up far less road and parking space than a conventional car, with shared-mobility use in its sights too.
NEX 3, the two-seater micro-car concept with a single gullwing door. (Image: Hero MotoCorp)
Intelligence woven through the showcase
Alongside the NEX range, Hero MotoCorp presented a technology showcase that points to where its vehicles are heading. The company says it includes AI-powered rider interfaces, facial recognition for keyless ignition, an AI voice assistant integrated into a 7-inch TFT display with Android Auto, a VIDA Energy Dock battery-based power hub, and a wireless charger for the VX2. Its safety showcase adds radar- and sensor-based rider assistance, AI-enabled monitoring, adaptive lighting, and a Smart Helmet with on-vehicle AI-powered chin-strap detection.
The EICMA 2026 showcase comes as Hero MotoCorp celebrates 25 consecutive years as the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters. Executive Chairman Dr Pawan Munjal says the showcase reflects the company’s vision to redefine the future of motorcycling through breakthrough design, advanced performance and intelligent technology, driven by the philosophy of “Make in India, for the World” — combining India’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities with international research and development expertise. With Novus Labs, that philosophy now extends beyond the motorcycle itself, to every small journey in between.
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