Electric two-wheeler makers to expand footprint

Vijay C Roy

Chandigarh, February 17

The electric vehicle (EV) industry has touched the milestone of 1 million unit-mark in the calendar year 2022, accounting for 4.7% of overall automobile sales. Major electric two-wheeler manufacturers are looking to expand the capacity to meet the growing demand.

Having sold over 59,000 units in 2022, Hero MotoCorp-backed Ather Energy is looking to expand its capacity.

Underscoring strong demand for electric two-wheelers in India, the firm is planning to take its capacity to nearly 15 lakh units per annum from the current 4.2 lakh units at its existing facilities in Hosur in Tamil Nadu.

The company had recently said it would reach capacity of 4.5 lakh units at its two Hosur plants in Karnataka by the end of this year and was looking for a site to set up the third plant.

“We have to expand to meet the growing demand. We are in talks with few state governments for the third plant. Hope things will be materialised soon,” said Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy.

Recently, the electric two-wheeler maker ushered in the New Year with a community event where it rolled out software upgrades, introduced services such as extended warranties and launched new colour options for its existing offering — Ather 450X.

Similarly, Greaves Electric Mobility (P) Ltd (GEMPL) has retailed 70,390 E2Ws & E3Ws as of YTD FY23. It has a production facility at Ranipet (Tamil Nadu) with installed capacity of 2,50,000 units in a single shift for e-scooters annually. This can be scaled up to 5,00,000 units in two shifts. The company sells electric scooters under the brand name ‘Ampere’.

“Since our foray into e-mobility, Greaves as a group has raised and committed Rs 1,500 crore to develop the Make in India EV ecosystem. With increasing demand for EVs, we have the capacity to ramp up production to 1 million units annually,” said Sanjay Behl, CEO & Executive Director, GEMPL.

Continuously seeing a rise in demand, Okinawa Autotech has scaled up manufacturing capabilities. “Currently, we have two operational facilities in Rajasthan at Bhiwadi and Alwar, with an installed capacity of 0.3 million units. We have started work on a greenfield facility in Karoli, Rajasthan, with an installed capacity of 1 million units annually.” said Jeetender Sharma, MD, Okinawa Autotech. In 2022, they had clocked the highest-ever sales of 1,01,366 units.