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Hero MotoCorp, the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in India, is going slow on electric scooter for time being because of various reasons including the meeting of BS-VI norms, for which it is working on all its products with new specifications and also limited infrastructure for the electric vehicles in the country.
“We do talk about it stating that industry requires, infrastructure/charging points, legislation and so on, but we don’t talk about what customers want. Customer has limited budget so he/ she doesn’t want to experiment with the hard earned money. They will rather spend that money on a Splendor or Maestro,” Markus Braunsperger, Chief Technology Officer, told BusinessLine on the sidelines of a new launch here.
He said the combustion engine vehicles have no range anxieties and people know how far they can go and such vehicles cater to the real needs also. For instance, it can carry more people without worrying about the range or speed, which is very limited in an electric vehicle.
Having said that Braunsperger added that Hero MotoCorp will launch an electric vehicle in the future and the company is doing research and test runs on various products at the company’s research and development centre at Jaipur.
“We are not talking about a fancy, super premium and high cost. A Tesla approach…for us we are talking about mass mobilisation and mass mobilisation means cost effective, which is acceptable at price too – may be 10-15 per cent from what is available right now (combustion engine),” he said adding that there is still a long way to go.
The company that has also taken stakes and invested around Rs 200 crore in Bengaluru-based Ather Energy, is developing the EVs on its own, Braunsperger said. He added that the company is anyway busy working on the BS-VI compliant engines for all its products right now, so there is not much happening around the EVs.
“It (BS-VI) is a huge challenge as it will be a complete upgradation of and it is tough for two-wheelers unlike the four-wheelers and also the supply chain. And, we are challenged a lot than anyone else because we are the biggest manufacturer (of two-wheelers) and we have to do the best,” he added.
Hero MotoCorp sells 22 products – 18 motorcycles and four scooters – which are all on BS-IV right now and it has to change them all to BS-VI compliant before the mandatory norms by the government come on April 2019.
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