Year 2020 will be the DEATH YEAR for Petrol scooter and motorcycles in India. Already all of them across the board are seeing almost 25% fall in demand. Add 10% that was usual, expected, year-on-year growth but didn’t happen. Adding both the number is around 35% fall in demand!!! That is HUGE and UNPRECEDENTED.

On the other hand Electric scooters… are doubling sales year on year since a couple of years. This year it crossed 2.5 times, next year it could triple or even increase 10 times with Ather, Revolt, Tork releasing their vehicles pan India.

At the same time NONE of any major Indian scooter or motorcycle makers have any serious electric scooter plan. They just keep complaining that Government has to build infrastructure. Its like they are doing the government some favour. They have no serious EV plan nor are they selling EVs to public. Neither Bajaj nor TVS nor Enfield… Nor TATA or Mahindra have ANY EV on sale to the common public. On the other hand Ather Energy has its scooter sold out! Is this not Amazing! ?!?

Year 2020 Death of Petrol Scooter

These big brand petrol scooter & motorcycle companies talk about India having no infrastructure… But the case is more like they do not have Plan B. They do build concept electric vehicles to show that they are well aware of everything. But it is completely evident that they do not know a thing about electric vehicles.

Charging Infrastructure for EVs are NOT prerequisite for popularity of electric vehicles because:

a) 80-95% of recharges happen at home (according to EV data worldwide and Ather Energy).

b) who will pay double or triple rate than recharge at home? Charging is NEVER free after all. People will tend to charge at home as much as possible.

c) All new electric Scooters come with removable battery that can be carried home or office to be recharged. So electric scooters DO NOT REQUIRE charging infrastructure AT ALL.

d) Most electric car users make it a point to charge the car from home, mainly because of range anxiety. All 100kms range cars can be easily recharged fully from a 15Amp house plug in 8 hrs.

e) Vehicles like Kona & Tesla which have a bigger battery pack REQUIRE 3 phase Industrial power lines to do quick charge and the cost of charging will be higher. If all the related cost of i) Car ownership ii) battery replacement cost, iii) daily charging cost and iv) Cost of installing a charge station at home is considered then it will turn out more expensive than CNG cars and similar to the cost of a diesel car ownership cost. But at the end of the day quick charging the car daily will reduce its battery life.

Always carry 15Amp extension cord in EV

Only people who don’t understand Electric Vehicles keep talking about charging Infrastructure as a prerequisite for Electric Vehicles becoming popular:

• 1) Majority of car owners do not drive beyond 100 kms per day.
• 2) For those who travel beyond 100kms finding a 15amp plug is not impossible because every town has electricity.
• 3)Paying any house or hotel ₹100/hr or ₹200/hr for full overnight charge is not a big deal. Some places have refused to take money and allowed free charging. “Athithi Devo bhavo”.
• 4) Charging station infrastructure as in US, China or Europe is not a prerequisite for EVs in India.
• 5) We don’t have to copy the west we can do it our way.

Why Mahindra and Tata are restricting sale of EVs

Both Mahindra and Tata are well AWARE that electric vehicles will OUTSELL their sedan cars ELSE why are they restricting sales of electric cars like E-Verito, E-Tiago & E-Tigor to only Fleet Operators and not sold to common public.

Mahindra & Tata sell these cars ONLY to Fleet operators aka Taxi companies like Ola & Uber. But these Taxi companies prefer vehicles that can travel at least 300kms/day because the Taxi cabs are used by 2 different drivers. These 2 drivers drive the vehicle in 12 hour shifts each and the vehicle travels about 300kms in 24 hours. If only one driver drives the car he can cover 150kms but even that too is not possible by these cars.

These electric vehicles by Mahindra & Tata cannot do 300kms/day. Thus they are not ideal cab cars. Only taxi cabs owners who drive the EVs themselves will prefer electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles by its low operating cost and longer charging time as compared to refueling is perfect for the public but not suited for double shift Taxies. Mahindra & Tata know this fact and thus they have prevented the public from buying it. That is why they have sold their eVerito, eTiago & eTigor ONLY to fleet operators.