Electric two-wheeler sales breach 75k mark in October, industry body cautiously optimistic

Sohinder Gill, director general, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), and CEO, Hero Electric, told Moneycontrol, “Over the last six to seven months, people who walk into our showrooms already have a petrol bike in their mind. There is a clear choice (among buyers) between whether I should buy a petrol bike or an electric scooter and some of them are opting for electric vehicles. This was never before in that proportion. Now it is significant.”

SMEV maintained that though the numbers are witnessing an unprecedented surge, it intends to remain cautiously optimistic.

“Festive months are always known to register 20-25 percent growth on a month-on-month basis partly because of schemes and partly because people want to buy during this period. Earlier, it was 70% low-speed and 30% high-speed (scooters) and after the FAME2 revision the sales mix reversed. So the sales numbers are not comparable because Vahan doesn’t track low-speed scooter sales,” said Gill.

Gill added that SMEV had revised downward the sales target set for total E2W sales (excluding low-speed e-scooters) for this financial year from 8 lakh units to 6.5 lakh.

“We already saw the inflection point six months back but are yet to see a hockey stick growth. So it has not reached that level that we can say that the sales are exploding. So being cautiously optimistic, I believe we can reach 30-40 percent and not 100 percent adoption of electric vehicles in five years,” Gill added.

For the second time in a row, Ola Electric was the market leader, selling 15,065 units in October, as per Vahan data, a nearly 50 percent increase over the 9,875 units sold in September.

Okinawa came second with 13,144 units followed by Ampere (owned by Greaves Cotton) at 9,173 units, Hero Electric at 8,348 units and Ather Energy at 7,087 units.

This is a huge step-up for Ola—the Bengaluru-based EV maker stood at fifth spot in terms of e-scooter registrations in August at 3,440. In September, it clocked 9,634 registrations.

Ola said it hit an all-time high for 2022, touching 20,000 units (dispatches to customers) in October, which it said were the highest for any EV brand in India.

The company clocked more than 60 percent month-on-month growth, while the overall EV 2W industry grew by almost 30 percent, it said in a statement.

It registered a strong performance during the festive season, recording a 4x growth over its daily run rate during Navratras, and 10x on Vijayadashami, the statement read.

Ather Energy, meanwhile, claimed that it delivered 8,213 units in October, a 122 percent year-on-year growth, riding on demand from across the country, according to the company.

Ravneet Singh Phokela, chief business officer, Ather Energy, said, “Importantly, the growth came from new as well as existing cities, and we expect this momentum to get stronger over the next few months. Having addressed the supply chain issues over the last few months, our focus is now on servicing the strong demand that we are seeing, and ensuring that we keep the waiting period down to a bare minimum for our customers.”

Okinawa claims to have sold 17,531 units (including low-speed scooters) due to the popular demand for its electric scooters including Praisepro, IPraise+, Okhi-90, Ridge+, LITE, R30 and Dual.

Jeetender Sharma, founder and MD, Okinawa Autotech, said, “Customer sentiment has been improving post-pandemic and we are confident of carrying forward this sales momentum in the coming months.”

Comments from Hero Electric and Ampere spokespersons were awaited at the time of writing.