India must end petrol two-wheelers by 2027: e-scooter firm Hero Electric
India’s biggest electric-scooter maker has called for the nation
to end sales of gasoline-powered two wheelers by 2027 to speed up a switch to
clean vehicles that has fallen behind other countries like China.
“2027 would be a good time for new sales to be 100% electric,”
Naveen Munjal, managing director of Hero Electric Vehicles Pvt.,
said in an interview. “If we leave it to market forces then things come along
at their own pace and the transition will be much slower than what it could
be.”
India’s shift to electric vehicles has
been hampered by high prices and a lack of charging infrastructure. Whereas
China accounts for 97% of the world’s e-scooter fleet, they make up less than
1% of total sales in India, according to BloombergNEF. Replacing gasoline
two-wheelers is key to tackling some of the world’s most toxic air because they
are more polluting than cars, yet comprise 75% of the 296 million vehicles on
the nation’s roads as of 2019.
A stricter mandate for electrification will force local automakers
to make the switch faster. Hero MotoCorp Ltd., the world’s largest maker of
motorcycles, will launch its first e-scooter by March 2022. Bajaj Auto Ltd.
plans to start deliveries of its Chetak electric scooter by the second quarter
of next year and will set up a unit to make electric and hybrid models. TVS
Motor Co. sells just one electric model, named iQube, in New Delhi and
Bangalore, and plans to expand to 20 more Indian cities.
“Once the goals are in place, companies will start planning
backwards in terms of supply chain, re-skilling, infrastructure requirements
and financial implications,” Munjal said. “The whole ecosystem begins to fall
in place once you know what goals are.”
Founded in 2007, Hero Electric is
competing with startup Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. and Hero MotoCorp, a separate
company whose chairman is Munjal’s uncle.
Ola Electric, backed by SoftBank Group Corp. and Tiger Global LP,
is building the world’s largest two-wheeler factory, and last week sold about 6
billion rupees’ ($82 million) of e-scooters on the first day orders opened.
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