Electric vehicles may be about 20% of Honda's wo-wheeler sales by 2030

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which entered the electric two-wheeler market in November, expects electric vehicles (EVs) to account for about 20 per cent of its total sales by 2030, director (sales and marketing) Yogesh Mathur told Business Standard.

 

HMSI launched swappable battery-run Activa E and fixed battery-run QC1 in November. It is starting deliveries of these two products from this month itself. “We are entering just three markets — Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai — with our Activa E. The deliveries of Activa E will begin in Bengaluru from February itself and they will begin in other two cities from April,” Mathur told the newspaper in an interview. 

“The deliveries of QC1 are beginning in February. Apart from Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, we are selling QC1 in Pune, Chandigarh and Hyderabad. These six cities comprise 50 per cent of the total two-wheeler market,” he stated.

 

About 1.148 million electric scooters were sold in India in 2024, recording a 33.48 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth. About six per cent of two-wheeler sales in India were electric scooters, according to data from Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (Fada). No one currently sells electric motorcycles in India. Ola Electric, TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy and Hero MotoCorp were the top five players in the electric scooter segment in 2024.

 

Mathur spoke about how the service quality has now become the single most important factor for an EV customer.

 

“We are going phase-wise in our EV sales and service expansion so that customers get proper services at our touch points. We have hired a separate set of employees who have been trained — physically and online — just for the EV business. We have provided them with insulated tools so that it would protect them during servicing of EVs,” he added.

 

“There are a lot of those (unhappy customers of other companies) currently who have not got proper customer service. Many of the brands are struggling on this aspect. So, we wanted to make sure that, at least from our side, once we are entering the EV market, our motto should be first service, then sale. We wanted to make sure that they have a similar kind of service experience of what they have been getting in our internal combustion engine (ICE)-run vehicles,” he elaborated.

 

Mathur stated that the penetration of flex-fuel run two-wheelers in India will depend on how quickly a retail chain for E85 (blend of petrol and 85 per cent ethanol) is developed across India.

 

“We will be ready. We will be aligning ourselves with the government’s policies to convert our entire product line up (to run on flex fuel)... It takes roughly two years to convert a petrol-run two-wheeler and launch a flex-fuel two-wheeler model. However, we can reduce the timelines if needed,” he stated.

 

“EVs could be 20 per cent of the total electric two-wheeler market by 2030. The rest of the share will be divided between the flex fuel-run vehicles and petrol-run vehicles,” he added. The company currently has 6,500 sales and service touch points across India and is gradually making all its touch points in the six aforementioned cities EV-ready.

 

Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai each have about 150 touch points, while Hyderabad has approximately 120-125. Chandigarh has around five to six touch points, and Pune has more than 80.

 

“We are creating separate bays at our dealerships in these cities, providing insulated tools to our service staff, and training our manpower. These touch points in the six cities will be upgraded within a year,” he said. The company has already upgraded over 30 dealerships in these six cities.

 

After analysing the current EV market, it found that charging and battery health are key concerns for customers.

 

“A section of customers does not want to spend time and mental energy on charging. So, we introduced swappable battery-powered vehicles for them. They can swap batteries within a minute. Our goal is to have a battery swap station every 5 km in Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai,” he said.

 

“Another concern among EV customers is resale value, as battery health deterioration used to reduce it. We asked ourselves how we could protect the asset value. In a swappable battery-powered vehicle, the battery remains our responsibility,” he added.