Electrotherm India Ltd (EIL), India's largest manufacturer of electric battery operated two-wheelers, expects to nearly double its sales to 30,000 to 40,000 units in the coming fiscal on the back of the new launches this year and the 'alpha weaver' technology-based batteries it has developed for its scooters.
The 'alpha-weaver' battery, as against the lead-acid batteries, will increase the travel range of the electric bikes from 70 kilometers(km) for a single charge to over 105 km, at the same time bringing down the charging time from eight to four hours. These batteries are also lighter by six kilograms compared to conventional batteries, claimed EIL.
The company has taken two years to develop the alpha-weaver batteries indigenously and has spent Rs 50 crore to set up a manufacturing facility for the same in Kutch region in Gujarat. "This has been funded from internal accruals.", claimed Mukesh Bhandari, chairman and chief technical officer of EIL. The company has sold 17,000 vehicles in 2008-09, and hopes to end this fiscal with 20,000 units. "We hope to sell around 40,000 bikes in 2010-11 and the growth would come mainly from the high-speed range that comprises 30-40 per cent of our sales now.", said Arun Pratap Singh, vice president and SBU-head of Auto of EIL.
Currently, the company has seven electric bike variants of which two are high-speed variants. It plans to introduce two more scooters in the same segment during 2010. The high-speed segment will account for two-thirds of our sales within the next two years, Singh said.
EIL has sold over 75,000 scooters since its launch in February 2006. It has a manufacturing facility in Kutch with a capacity of 2,88,000 vehicles per annum that will also produce the electric batteries now equivalent to 25,000 kilo-watt hours per month.
"Our products are priced between Rs 21,000 and Rs 47,000.", Singh said adding that the new battery would result in a price rise of 8-10 per cent in the variants. The company has not raised prices of its scooters in the last two years.
EIL was importing 100,000 battery packs from China earlier, and Bhandari pointed out that developing the batteries indigenously would be great logistical saviour. The company is yet to work out the how the cost per vehicle would be impacted.
Nearly, 95,000 electric scooters were sold during 2008-09 and the industry is expected to grow by 10 per cent this fiscal. Delhi is the biggest market for electric bikes for EIL accounting for 20 per cent of its net sales followed by West Bengal at 15 per cent. Singh pointed out that lack of incentives to switch to electric vehicles has dented sales in Gujarat.
