Concerns over safety and performance could impact electric scooter sales in India: Survey

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Decline in consumer confidence over safety and performance concerns could impact electric scooter sales in the country, according to a recent survey by LocalCircles, a community social media platform.

While the share of respondents who were not convinced about the safety and performance of electric scooters was at 17 percent in March this year, it almost doubled to reach 32 percent this month. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of the respondents had the same concerns a year ago.

Interestingly, as much as 31 percent from over 11,136 respondents surveyed across 292 districts of the country, said that they do not drive scooters.

There has been a steady increase in the number of electric vehicle registrations since 2019. More than 4.19 lakh new EVs were added to the roads in India till July 2022, more than the 3.11 lakh added overall in 2021.

But despite the increased sales, the first half of the current year has been challenging for makers of electric scooters as incidents where several of them caught fire were reported. In the wake of these incidents, leading companies in the segment such as Ola Electric, Okinawa and Pure EV were forced to recall thousands of their units.

This was followed by an expert panel finding that several electric two-wheelers sold in the country lacks even the basic safety features, prompting the government to seek corrective action and warn the manufacturers of legal action.

The LocalCircles survey shows that this has impacted the consumer perception towards electric scooters. Only 1 percent of the households surveyed said that they plan to buy an electric scooter in the next six months, down from the 2 percent who said the same in March.

“One of the top concerns of the people continues to be the fires reported in electric scooters,” said LocalCircles in its report. “While standards are being developed for electric batteries and electric scooters, with multiple Government stakeholders involved, the process is time consuming,” added the community social media platform.

Meanwhile, 7 percent of the respondents said that they would like to buy an electric scooter but do not have the funds for it and another 5 percent were unsure about the infrastructure available for electric vehicles in their location.

According to data from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency shared in the parliament by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, there are currently 2,826 public charging stations operational in the country. Furthermore, as much as 2,877 new charging stations have been sanctioned in 68 cities across the country. Having easy access to such infrastructure will be crucial to achieving the government’s target to raise the EV market penetration to 30 percent by 2030.

Data compiled from the Vahan dashboard shows that EVs only account for 0.49 percent of the total vehicles on the road in India. Although around one million new EVs were added to the country’s roads in the past three and half years, this pales in comparison to the 64.5 million non-electric vehicles registered during the same period, according to government data.

EV purchases are on an upward trajectory globally. According to the International Energy Agency, global EV purchases jumped to 6.6 million from 3 million a year earlier, accounting for 9 percent of the market. For India to catch up, it is critical for the industry and the government to win back consumer confidence, said LocalCircles.