Greaves Cotton plans new products, network expansion and other initiatives to strengthen its electric mobility business with growing sales of its electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers.

For the December 2019 quarter, electric two-wheeler sales grew 22 per cent at 4,944 units when compared with 4,046 units in the year-ago period. E-rickshaw sales zoomed to 1,565 units from 385 units in December 2018 quarter.

For the nine-month period, electric two-wheeler sales stood at 13,358 units, posting a growth of 23 per cent.

Total sales of e-rickshaws grew significantly to 3,464 units from 429 units in the same period previous fiscal.

“Greaves electric mobility business has seen consistent growth for the last 10 quarters. Ampere, electric mobility arm of Greaves, has focussed on bridging the last-mile connectivity and we see teenagers, college-going students, housewives, and young office executives using two-wheeler electric scooters for shorter commutes,” P Sanjeev, Chief Operating Officer, Ampere Vehicles, told BusinessLine .

Uptake in EVs

There has been an uptake in EVs over the past 12 months on the back of positioning of EVs as the future of clean mobility.

“We see the biggest push for EV coming from electric scooters as the daily average travel for a two-wheeler driver would be around 30 km with optimum city speed requirements and there is greater cost-benefit when compared with petrol 2-wheeler,” he added. The company hopes to build on the momentum with the launch of new products. Ampere launched a mid-range electric scooter Reo Elite in December 2019 for the Bengaluru market and it will soon be available in other markets.

Ampere will also launch a high range scooter – new Magnus – soon in price point between ₹80,000 and ₹85,000.

The new electric scooter launches coupled with Greaves Leasing Finance’s recent alliance with Wheels EMI for electric two- wheeler financing is expected to support its sales growth. The financing option is available for both high speed (operating with driving licence) and slow speed vehicles (operating without driving licence).

Ampere market share now stands at 18 per cent in electric two-wheeler market with its presence in close to 200 cities, about 60 per cent of which is in southern region.

Ampere recently opened its 200th EV dealership outlet and plans to double this number in the near future.

The objective is to get closer to consumers with comprehensive EV ecosystem support – trained technicians, service, spares, charging and finance.

Duty hike impact

As the latest Union Budget announced duty hikes for EV components, the company indicated that any inevitable price increase owing to base cost increase will cause a commensurate hike.

However, it bets on low-cost financing tie-ups with EMI as low as ₹49 per day to make the e-vehicle purchasing attractive.