Honda to roll out 2 electric two-wheelers next year

 PUNE: Japanese automaker Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India on Wednesday said it will launch two electric two-wheelers in the country in fiscal 2023-24.

With these rollouts, the Indian arm of the Japanese auto giant will take on TVS, Bajaj, and Hero MotoCorp, which have already forayed into the electric two-wheeler space.

The EVs will be launched under ‘Project Vidyut’, its new customer journey that caters to the demand of the electrification age.

The first EV will be a mid-range two-wheeler while the second model will be a product equipped with ‘Honda Mobile Power Pack e’ swappable batteries.

However, the company did not reveal if the upcoming EVs will be scooters or motorcycles.

The firm is setting up a separate unit at its existing Narsapura plant in Karnataka to roll out electric two-wheelers. The company aims to touch 10 lakh electric vehicles production capacity annually by 2030.

“Electric mobility is growing in India and our aim is to build the country's best EV business structure with a dedicated factory in Narsapura,” Atsushi Ogata, MD and CEO at Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India told reporters.

He said that the company will focus on localization, and main components including battery and other critical components like PCU will be produced in-house. The motor will also be designed and manufactured locally, Ogata said.

“We aim to reach one million annual EV production at Narsapura by 2030,” he said. The firm is planning to bring in a dedicated platform on which multiple EV models with fixed and swappable batteries would be introduced.

Ogata said the company will utilize its existing sales network of around 6,000 touchpoints to come up with charging stations and for utilizing battery swapping.

The firm also plans to leverage the overall ecosystem, including battery-swapping stations at petrol pumps, metro stations, and other locations, to provide convenient battery-swapping solutions for EV users.

“With our EV roadmap, now in the execution phase, we are taking substantial steps towards creating exclusive infrastructure for manufacturing a diverse range of electric vehicles. Parallelly, we are also investing in the development of EV technologies, charging infrastructure and aftersales services,” Ogata said.