Thrissur: Electric vehicles in high demand
A dealer at Paliyekkara in Thrissur said that he was getting inquiries from across the state.
Thrissur: With fuel prices skyrocketing, the demand for electric scooters/bikes, which are sold on central government subsidies, has risen in the state. Though the electric scooters manufactured using Chinese technology had hit the markets five years ago, the demand went up with the arrival of the Japanese scooters two months ago.
The base models of the electric scooter, which will run at a maximum speed of 35 km/hour, do not need any registration and could be used without driving licence.
A dealer at Paliyekkara in Thrissur said that he was getting inquiries from across the state. Within two months of opening the shop, he had sold more than 100 gearless scooters.
There are several advance bookings as well and he was facing difficulty in delivering the vehicles in time. “Batteries of the base models and similar ones could be fully charged with 1.25 units of power and they have a maximum speed limit of 35 to 55 km/hr along with a mileage of nearly 90-100 km for each full charging.
The enhanced model will take two units of power for fully charging the batteries and have an upper speed limit of 75 km/hr with a mileage of 170-200 km,” Sujith Lal, sales manager of the showroom, said.
The vehicles are cost-effective. As per the KSEB rates, the charges for fully charging a battery would be Rs 6 to Rs 10 each time. The batteries of the base models need to be replaced in two years and that of the enhanced model will last for three years, the dealers say. A fresh set of batteries will cost not less than Rs 10,000.
Starting from the base models, the price of the electric scooters ranges from Rs 49,000 to Rs 75,000 with a subsidy of nearly Rs 10,000 from the Union government.
At present, the subsidy on the base model has been taken off, the dealers say.