The impact for all electric two-wheelers, which are imported mostly from China, is that it will lead to price escalation that will be passed onto customers.
Electric two-wheelers have zipped past the half-a-million registration mark and achieved a market penetration of 4 per cent at the fag end of Calendar 2022, according to data released by VAHAN. According to VAHAN data for the year (until December 27), 560,000 two-wheelers were registered in the country, up a staggering fourfold over 2021, when only 136,000 were registered, and when electric vehicle penetration was a mere 1.05 per cent. The total number of two-wheelers (internal combustion engine, or ICE, and electric) registered so far in 2022 stands at 14.5 million, up only 12.7 per cent over the previous calendar year.
China's covid crisis could provoke a raw material crunch for India's EV industry later this year.
Foxconn means serious business in India. Its delegation to India was led by its Chairman Young Liu who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a boost to the electric vehicle boom in India, Taiwanese major Hon Hai Technology Group (aka Foxconn) is likely to set up an EV manufacturing unit in India through its subsidiary Foxtron. Amid speculation that the company may look at Tamil Nadu and probably the Ford India unit near Chennai for its new facility, sources indicate that the group was already betting big in the electric vehicle component space in India through Bharat FIH, which is already having a tie up with companies like Ola Electric and Ather. Bharat FIH currently has two manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur that manufactures phones like Apple iPhones and Xiaomi phones.
'What volumes will we have with a Rs 1 lakh product?' 'As a company, we will not restrict it to a segment.'
Electric vehicle retail sales in the country witnessed over three-fold jump last fiscal with two-wheeler offtake leading the segment, according to data compiled by automobile dealers' body FADA. Total electric vehicle (EV) retails reached 4,29,217 units in 2021-22, a rise of three-fold from 1,34,821 units in the financial year 2020-21, the industry body said. Total EV sales had stood at 1,68,300 units in the 2019-20 fiscal, it noted.
This is part of the nine memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 5,027 crore, including Hero Group-backed Ather Energy's over Rs 600 crore investment, to establish a manufacturing facility for e-vehicles.
A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act has been issued for attaching bank deposits, plots, flats and residential houses, it said in a statement.
Automobile manufacturers, new and old, as well as ancillary suppliers are set to spend a combined Rs 70,630 crore over the next five years on either entering the electric vehicle segment or stepping up their presence in it. Data culled from announcements made by firms shows India, the world's fifth largest automobile market, is poised to receive one of the biggest capex pushes ever to fuel the transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors and batteries as part of a green drive. The EV push, egged on by the government's emphasis on electric mobility to meet its net zero targets, is expected to yield at least 25 electric vehicles - new ones as well as electrified versions of existing vehicles running on internal combustion engines.
Ola Electric's technology team is working hard to iron out the technical kinks that marred the electric vehicle company's hyped online sale of its electric scooters (e-scooters) - the S1 and the S1 Pro - on Wednesday, said company sources. The SoftBank-backed firm is facing technical difficulties in making the website live for the purchase of its e-scooters. According to company sources, the website couldn't go live as there were integration issues.
US hedge fund Tiger Global and Japanese investment giant SoftBank have trimmed their investments in Indian start-ups by over a third - from $3.8 billion in the second half of 2021 to a mere $1.08 billion in H1 2022, according to data from Venture Intelligence. While SoftBank's investments in India dropped from $1.9 billion in H2 2021 by more than a fifth to only $0.33 billion in H1 2022, that of Tiger Global fell from $1.92 to $0.74 billion in the same period. Private equity (PE) fund trackers point out that this year most of the deals that Tiger Global has invested in are in the early stage (up to series D), and only a few are in the series E and above.
It takes a while to get used to the constant and instant supply of power that is the case with EVs, and handling the S1 Pro when it takes a corner or makes a turn can be tricky, says Pavan Lall.
Upon completion, the factory will create almost 10,000 jobs and will initially have an annual capacity of 2 million units.
Sales of total electric vehicles in India are expected to be around 10 lakh units this year, equal to what was sold collectively in the last 15 years, mainly riding on the good traction witnessed by electric two-wheelers, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said on Thursday. In 2021, the sales of electric two-wheelers (E2Ws) in the country jumped over two-fold at 233,971 units driven by a good traction of high-speed scooters as compared to 100,736 units in 2020, SMEV said in a statement. "We haven't seen better days than the last few months in the entire EV journey.
Ola Electric is moving the delivery for the first batch of its electric scooters to between December 15 to the end of the month, a two- to four-week delay from its earlier schedule, due to a shortage of chipsets and electronic parts. The first batch of deliveries were scheduled for November 30 but the company decided to delay them after a meeting between its factory team and the global supply chain on Saturday. It became clear that the late delivery of chips and electronic parts was only 'getting worse', sources told Business Standard. Ola has apologised to customers for the delay and said it is "ramping up production as fast as we can so that you can get your Ola S1 at the earliest". It has stopped taking any new bookings until the chip shortage has eased, say sources.
As a 75-year-old septuagenarian, Bajaj Auto has adapted itself as a nod to competition, regulations, and changing buyer preference. It will continue to do so, said its managing director Rajiv Bajaj at the launch of the all-new Pulsar 250. This was in response to a question on the company's preparedness for disruption by electric two-wheeler start-ups.
Large manufacturers are investing in small companies to get a peek into their R&D. Alnoor Peermohamed and Anita Babu report.
The soaring prices of metals like lithium, nickel and cobalt, which are the primary constituents of the cell, as well as supply chain bottlenecks, are also pushing up the cost of batteries
Recently, world headlines buzzed with Elon Musk's announcement that he was shelving his audacious bid for social media platform Twitter. Away from the media spotlight, questions are being asked about the maverick billionaire's plans in India, too. A few days ago, a Reuters report said Musk's flagship Tesla had put on hold its plan to launch electric cars in India.
The firm, which showcased an electric variant of its Duet scooter at the 2016 Auto Expo, is working on two models at its Jaipur R&D centre.
Known for its phones and emerging from nowhere in the segment, it might take on the scooter Goliaths.
The entry of SoftBank-backed Ola into the electric scooter (e-scooter) segment is set to power up the overall market and perhaps fast-track the adoption of battery-operated vehicles. But for manufacturers of internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered two-wheelers, such as Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, and TVS Motor, it will be a double whammy. Not only will they have to contend with the aggressive pricing of Ola's scooter and incur a loss at each unit of the e-scooter sold, the volumes of their regular (ICE) models, too, could feel the squeeze, observed analysts. Ola is expected to price its e-scooter in the range of Rs 85,000-1.1 lakh.
The $306-million investment in Ola Electric Mobility by SoftBank Corp, Arun Sarin Family, Ratan Tata and Matrix has been the biggest funding in this space in value terms this year.
Commentary in India is considered a post-retirement option but Dinesh Karthik, who is very much an active cricketer, wants to change that perception.
Two of the three youths killed in an encounter with security forces in the Parimpora area of Srinagar were 'radically inclined' and working as overground workers of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT) terror outfit, police said on Friday and added that the case was being investigated.
The deal brings the two start-up stalwarts - Bansal and Ola co-founder and chief executive officer Bhavish Aggarwal - together in the backdrop of growing foreign control in this space.
After a gap of three years, defence secretaries of India and Pakistan on Monday met to discuss the long-pending Siachen issue.
Pakistan's Defence Secretary Lieutenant General (Retired) Syed Ather Ali arrived in New Delhi on Saturday for the 12th round of defence secretary-level talks on the long- pending Siachen issue, which is being resumed after a gap of three years. "Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar will lead the Indian delegation during the two-day talks. India and Pakistan decided to resume the talks last year after both prime ministers met in Thimpu," defence ministry officials said.
An EV has to be purchased along with the battery as there are hardly any battery swapping, rental, or leasing business models available across India.
Tamil Nadu has cornered around 18.63 per cent of the fresh investments in Q1FY21 and topped the list of state-wise investments. These investments should help create over 67,212 jobs.
These 15 districts, included Agra, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Kanpur, Varanasi, Shamli, Meerut, Bareilly and Bulandshahr.
In doing so, Bajaj has become the first internal combustion engine two-wheeler company to launch an all-electric two-wheeler in India.
Bansal has picked up a majority stake in Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services, a company which runs microfinance institution Chaitanya India Fin Credit.
What will it take for Tesla to plug and play in India? Sector pundits say it's a mix of strategy, getting the price right, timing, the right talent, and above all, patience.
Modi has set a target of generating 100 Gw of solar power by 2022.
India's under 18-World Cup potential players fell a minute short and went down 1-2 to a strong Australia team in the final of the Singapore International Hockey Challenge on Monday.
As a tech services company, Ola has never been in hardcore manufacturing. And unlike in ride hailing, which is a two-player market (Uber is the only other competitor), in two-wheelers it faces many entrenched players. But most of all, rivals say Ola's targets are out of sync with most, even ambitious, projections.
The new scheme may link the incentives to the battery power - higher the power, higher the incentive and most electric two-wheelers running on Indian roads use low power and fast charging batteries.