The Hindu Business Line : Ultra Motor’s Manesar unit to be ready in January

Mumbai, Sept 12 Electric scooter maker Ultra Motor is setting up its second plant in Manesar near Delhi. The company is currently making scooters in its Hyderabad plant.

“Our Manesar plant will be operational in January 2009. The Manesar plant will take care of the market needs in North while Hyderabad plant will serve South,” Mr Ganesh Mahalingam, Managing Director, Ultra Motor India, told Business Line.

Both plants will have the capacity to produce 400 electric scooters each a day. The combined annual capacity of both the plants would be close to three lakh. “We are not going to utilise the full capacity now. It will take some time,” said Mr Mahalingam.

The company, with its three models – Velocity, Marathon and Marathon Light – sold about 8,000 units so far and has set itself a target of selling 35,000 units during the current fiscal. “We are adding two more models this year and the festival sales will help us achieve volumes,” he said.

R&D Focus

Ever since it parted ways with Hero Group in April, the UK-based Ultra Motor is quietly building its own infrastructure and product portfolio. The company is investing Rs 150 crore in research and development for the next three years. “The focus of R&D will be to develop India-specific products. We will have three additional variants in both high speed and low speed segments next year. We are developing an e-bike with 100 km range,” he said.

The company currently has 165 dealers and is targeting 260 dealerships by March. “At present, we have presence in Northern, Southern and Western parts. The new dealerships will be primarily from Central and Eastern India,” he said.

From January onwards, the Ultra scooters will be fitted with locally manufactured batteries.

Related Stories:
Ultra Motor launches `Marathon'
Hero Ultra launches new bikes in Maharashtra

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