In the financial year ending March 2021, over 1.5 crore two-wheelers were sold in India. In contrast, electric two-wheelers sales were only around 1.44 lakh units. Limited charging infrastructure and high retail price have been cited as key reasons behind the limited popularity of electric two-wheelers thus far. Two companies— Hero MotoCorp and Ola Electric—are about to change at least the charging pain points.
Hero MotoCorp, which is the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, feels battery swapping network will be the solution. Meanwhile, Ola Electric, which is building the world’s largest electric two-wheeler factory spread over 500 acres and a full capacity of 10 million units, is betting on a hyper charger network.
Hero MotoCorp and Taiwan’s Gogoro will establish a joint venture to bring Gogoro’s battery swapping platform to India. The two will also collaborate on electric vehicle development to bring Hero-branded, powered by Gogoro Network vehicles to the market.
In Taiwan, there are over 2,000 sites where Gogoro riders can just swap their batteries. The company has more than 3,75,000 riders and claims the Gogoro Network manages 2,65,000 battery swaps daily.
Separately, on Wednesday, Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal unveiled plans to set up a hyper charger network, which, he says, will be the world’s densest and fastest fast charging network, spread across 1,00,000 locations. In the first year, Ola is setting up over 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India, which it claims is more than double the existing charging infrastructure in the country.
“Electric is the future of mobility, and we are reimagining the entire user experience of owning an electric vehicle. Our plans to build a comprehensive charging network is a key piece of this. By creating the world’s largest and densest two-wheeler charging network, we will dramatically accelerate the customer adoption of electric vehicles and rapidly move the industry to electric,” said Aggarwal.
Hero already holds close to 35 per cent stake in the Bengaluru-based electric scooter startup Ather Energy. Pawan Munjal, chairman and CEO of Hero MotoCorp, says the partnership with Gogoro will expand the work Hero is doing at its research and development hubs at the Centre of Innovation and Technology in Jaipur and its tech centre in Germany.
“The vision and commitment of Hero and Gogoro is perfectly aligned towards the common goal of accelerating the shift to smart, sustainable electric mobility in India, and around the world. With this new partnership, we commit to introducing a sustainable mobility paradigm, first in India and then in other markets around the world,” said Munjal.
Currently, Hero Electric, owned by Naveen Munjal, a relative of Pawan Munjal, is the market leader in the electric two-wheeler market. Ather Energy, Okinawa, Ampere and Pure EV are among the other notable players. Hero’s traditional two-wheeler rivals Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor have already entered the EV space with the Chetak and IQube electric scooters respectively, but their availability is still very limited.
A network of battery swapping stations as envisaged by Hero or a fast charging network, which Ola plans to set up, could well drive electric two-wheelers in to the fast lane. A two-wheeler customer may not have to worry about finding a charging station and spend time charging the batteries anymore. He/she could just swap the drained out batteries with fully charged ones at a charging station. The customer may also not have to buy the batteries and a subscription model could be worked out for the same. In the case of Ola, the fast charger will charge the battery up to 50 per cent in just 18 minutes and provide 75km range.
The first of Hero’s electric vehicles is likely to be launched later in the current financial year. Ola’s electric scooter is likely to hit the market in July.
