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Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) on Wednesday forayed into the fast-growing domestic electric mobility market with the introduction of e-scooters, ACTIVA e: and QC1, with swappable and fixed batteries.
With this, the Japanese two-wheeler maker will now be competing with other legacy players such as Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, TVS Group as well as pure EV players like Ather and Ola, who already have a good presence in the segment, which is growing at 34 per cent year-on-year.
HMSI said it will commence booking for the latest offerings from January 1 next year while the customers will start getting the vehicles from February onwards.
It, however, did not reveal the prices for the two e-scooters.
"Today is a very significant day as HMSI steps into the electric mobility space.
"The introduction of ACTIVA e: and QC1 marks a defining step in our commitment to sustainable mobility in India," said Tsutsumu Otani, managing director, president & CEO, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India.
The move is in line with Honda's global 'Triple Action to ZERO' concept to realize carbon neutrality by 2050, which focuses on three areas: carbon neutrality, clean energy, and resource circulation, he said.
With our EV romadmap now in the execution phase, HMSI is committed to building one of India's best EV ecosystems, he added.
EV Penetration has reached around 6 per cent.
This momentum is expected to accelerate further as demand for more reliable and sustainable electric products grows, said Yogesh Mathur, Director for sales and marketing at Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Ltd.
HMSI is looking to play a key role in building the electric two-wheeler category by understanding the customer's need, he said.
Justifying the timing of its entry in the domestic segment, the company said, "We understand that this is the right time for us to come because overall the growth has been around 34 per cent year on year."
"We continue to sense the market and basis on the sensing of this market wherever there is an opportunity for us to introduce the product, we accordingly do that," it said.
People who are adopting EVs still grapple with issues such as charging infrastructure, range performance, battery life and after sales service network, Mathur said.
"The customer today is also looking forward to a brand, which they can trust, a brand that offers them, complete reliability and at HMSI, we aim to achieve this," he emphasised.
The important aspect of its strategy for the electric vehicle business would not be just the sales (alone) but complete ecosystem-- charging infrastructure, sales and service along with the customer experience, the company said.
HMSI said it would gauge the response from the market and then accordingly come out with pricing for the two vehicles but added that they would be "affordable."
While QC1 which comes with a fixed battery will be available pan-India once it is rolled out, ACTIVA e:, which has a swappable battery initially will be made available in Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai as part of a phase-wise launch, it said, adding that it the two EVs will be retailed through its "Red Wing" dealership network.
HMSI said within the first year itself, it wants to enter 50 per cent of the EV markets.
HMSI at present has a total of 6,000 sales and service touchpoints pan-India with over 1,000 of them main dealerships.
These will be the first ones to be upgraded to deal with the sales and services of electric vehicles, it stated.
Bengaluru currently has a network of 84 EV swap stations, it will reach 150 by March next year across Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru and 250 by March 2026, the company said.
According to Mathur, the two-wheeler industry, which is so far clocking higher double-digit sales growth, is likely to see lower double-digit volume sales growth owing to the new emission norms in place, which will increase vehicle prices.