Select content updated: Feb 2020 by Narasimhan Santhanam
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Indian EV market
The following table provides data on the total sales and installations of electric vehicles and charging stations in India and worldwide.
| Vehicle / charging station type | India | Global |
| EVs (sales, 2018) | ||
| Electric bicycles | 10,000* | 35 million (almost 95% in China) |
| Electric scooters | 1,10,000 | 16.5 million (most of them in China) |
| Electric motorcycles (high power motorcycle) | <1000* | 0.1 million* |
| Electric 3 wheelers (all variants) | 7,00,000 | 2 million* |
| Electric Cars | 2000 – 3000* | 2 million (including hybrids) |
| Electric buses | < 300* | 250,000 (mostly in China) |
| EV Charging Infra (total installed, Apr 2019) | ||
| Normal AC Public Charging Points | 200 | 330,000 |
| DC Fast Charging Points | 65 | 260,000 |
Table 1: Electric vehicle and charging station sales in India and global
*: EAI estimates; Rest are estimates from diverse sources
Except for electric three-wheelers, where India has an excellent share of the global market, it can be seen from the table above that India’s contribution to the global EV market is currently insignificant.
Electric car sales in India during April-November 2019
| Cars | Sales from April to November 2019 |
| Mahindra e-Verito | 513 |
| Tata Tigor EV | 491 |
| Hyundai Kona EV | 280 |
| Mahindra e2o | 25 |
| Total | 1,309 |
Table 2: Electric car sales in India during April-November 2019
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Car rental/cab service providers contribute significantly for the sales of Mahindra Elecrtic’s eVerito & Tata Motors’ Tigor EV
The major companies operating in India electric vehicle market include Mahindra Electric, Honda electric, Gayam motor works, Tata Motors Limited, Ampere Vehicle, TVS, Avon Cycles Ltd, Tork Motors among others are mentioned in detail below:
Mahindra Electric
The company had expected its electric vehicle sales to jump three-fold in 2017 as it focused on offering mobility solutions, including partnering with rental firms and cab aggregators.
In the same year, Apr 2017, the company announced a partnership with Zoomcar, a self-driven car-rental firm, to promote shared mobility of electric cars in India.
In 2016, the company launched its small electric car e2oPlus, sedan e-verito, and passenger & cargo electric vehicle e-Supro and sold over 1,100 units. The company had also inked a pact with cab aggregator Ola targeting an overall vehicle sales and financing of over USD 400 million (Rs 2,600 crore).
The company, the only manufacturer of fully-electric cars in India, also planned in 2017, a mega boost to its production capacity of e-vehicles, looking to ramp it up from a mere 200 units monthly to over 5,000 units a month over the next two years (2017-19).
Automaker Mahindra & Mahindra announced the deployment of 50 of its Electric Vehicles (EVs) to Uber, an on-demand ride-sharing company, to provide zero-emission mobility. Earlier in 2019, Mahindra had announced its collaboration with Uber to explore the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) on its platform in several cities across the country. To begin with, the companies would deploy 50 Mahindra EVs in the city and scale up over a period of time.
Mahindra Electric, a subsidiary of the Mahindra Group and Bangalore-based electric vehicles (EV) fleet operator Lithium Urban Technologies today announced their partnership has clocked 100 million electric kilometers (e-kms) with over 500 Mahindra EVs running more than 100,000 e-kms.
Hero Electric
The company expects to turn profitable in FY19 as demand for electric bikes is increasing. A total of 23,000 electric two-wheelers were sold in India in the fiscal year that ended on 31 March 2017 – up from 18,000 in 2016 – according to the Society of Manufacturer of Electric Vehicles (SMEV). The company expected the year 2017 to end with 36,000 units. The company expects that in future, the growth would be largely led by Hero Electric that accounts for six out of every 10 e-bikes sold in the country.
Hero Electric is confident about increasing its sales number 10-fold in the next five years. The company is projecting sales to touch 2.5 lakh units by 2022.
Hero Electric projects sales numbers to touch 75,000 units in 2018. To help it meet the demand, the company is planning to set up a new bigger manufacturing facility in South or West India. As of 2017, the manufacturing facility in Ludhiana has a capacity of 50,000 units. Hero Electric has a wide range of electric scooters in its portfolio. Prices range from Rs. 24,290 (as of Dec 2017) for the basic model going all the way up to Rs 86,850 for the top-of-the-line lithium-ion battery powered Photon.
Gayam Motor Works
As of end 2017, the company has sold more than 5000 vehicles to more than 15 countries, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines. The company had also planned to sell 5,000 SmartAutos and 15,000 LIMITLESS E-Bikes by the end of fiscal 2019 and had opened its Series A round by looking to raise Rs. 976 million in that round. The company also said that they would soon enter into the retail market as well, by setting up the required charging/swapping infrastructure.
Hyderabad-based EV manufacturer Gayam Motor Works (GMW) is supplying smart autos to Swedish furniture maker IKEA for its delivery services in India from April 2019. Ola to partner with Gayam Motor Works for a trial run of electric vehicles in cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
Bajaj Auto
Bajaj Auto, the world’s third-largest motorcycle company, has invested $8 million (about Rs 57 crore) in bicycle and electric scooter rental startup Yulu. As a part of the deal, Bajaj is also going to manufacture customised electric scooters for the Bengaluru based startup.
Ampere Vehicles
Ampere has rolled out 30,000 vehicles since inception in 2009. In 2016, the company had revenues of about Rs. 97 million, which is expected to hit Rs. 1,302 million by 2020. The company had also signed exclusive partnerships with large delivery chains like Chai Point, Freshworld in 2016.
TVS Motors
In Aug 2017, TVS Motors planned to launch new hybrid and electric vehicles in the near future. The hybrid vehicle was expected to be launched by the end of 2017, while the electric vehicle was expected to be launched by February or March 2018.
Avon Cycles Ltd
Avon Cycles Ltd., in 2017, announced that it aimed to sell 8,000 e-bikes by setting up 50 branded outlets throughout the country within the fiscal 2017-18.
Tata Motors
In Dec 2017, the company delivered the first set of Tigor Electric Vehicles (EVs) to state-run Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) as part of their initiative to procure 10,000 electric vehicles. Tata Motors is committed to the Government’s vision for electric vehicles by 2030 and will work in a collaborative manner to facilitate faster adoption of electric vehicles and to build a sustainable future for India.
Tork Motors
In 2016, Tork received first round of angel funding from a host of marquee investors including Ola founders Bhavish Agarwal, Ankit Bhati and a group of angels led by Harpreet Grover, CoCubes co-Founder & CEO. The company said that it was sufficiently funded to finish R&D and start production, and aimed at selling 5,000-10,000 electric bikes each year for the first three years.
Highlights of downstream Methods used by OEMs
- Ather Energy: Ather Space has been designed to educate customers about electric vehicles while providing a holistic experience in an interactive space. The company inaugurated its first experience center in Bengaluru in June 2019. Here, people can ride the Ather 450 and understand the product and features before pre-ordering it. Customers can also book test ride slots on the website prior to visiting the experience center. Apart from seeing the key components of the scooter, people can learn and interact with the connected features through a digital display.
- Revolt: They have a unique payment method called My Revolt Plan which allows the customer to pay the cost of the vehicle in an EMI of 37 months without any upfront cost. The EMI amount is around Rs. 3499 /3999 for RV 400 model and Rs. 2999/- for RV300 model. They also do SOS Battery delivery (if the customer is stranded because of discharged battery they can call revolt and get a new battery fully charged delivered to their location. Like a mobile swapping point)
- Bus manufacturers are forming partnership with the state government for Supplying intercity buses. Ashok Leyland has the contract for supplying 300 buses to BMTC. The Olectra-BYD strategic tie-up has supplied 163 electric buses to various state transport undertakings (STUs) across the country under the government’s FAME-India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India) scheme so far and has further orders for 85 buses
- Most of the OEMs are partnering up with distributors to cover a wide area of distribution network but some companies like Ather have their own distribution network.
Learn more on various Status & Trends in E-Mobility across: Indian EV Prices | Global EV Market | Current status of Indian EV Market | Indian Vehicle Segments | Challenges to Indian E-mobilty | International Startups Takeaways | Indian Startups takeaways |
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