It is no surprise that electric scooters in India haven’t been shooting up in sales with us Indians. They have been with us silently for a very long time now but alas, they are nowhere to be seen. There are numerous reasons for the abysmal sales of electric scooters but at the core of it has been the inability of the Indian demographic to adapt to newer technologies.
Consider this, Mahindra launched an electric vehicle named the Reva a while ago and sales were so abysmal that we hardly ever see it in the showrooms or at anyone’s possession. It was effectively a re-brand of the G-Wiz and had a range of about 80 KMS. It was a decent car that was inexpensive and easy to maintain and easy to drive. Still, we found its low range as impractical and hardly anyone ever bought one.
Coming back to the electric scooters in India, there are several reasons as to why electric vehicles are unaccepted, scooters, in particular, some of them are as discussed below:
- Mileage: Scooters simply can’t accommodate larger battery sizes and due to the fairly poor sales, developing new battery technologies for most companies is impractical. Hence they have to rely on pre-existing tech, which simply cannot provide the range as of this moment. Having to charge up often is a terrible inconvenience and since most work days on Indians require them to the on the roads for extended periods where there are virtually no charging points, here the concept of electric scooters is seen as more of an inconvenience.
- No quick charge tech: Indians are probably some of the business people the world and our obsession with everything happening “fat-fat” is a major hindrance to any sales of electric vehicles. So since battery and charging technology is still some time away, electric scooters aren’t the most efficient when it comes to moving around.
- General paranoia of batteries exploding: Electricity and water don’t go well with each other and a majority of our population believe that any form of bigger battery packs could potentially explode if came in contact with water. That’s simply isn’t true, to be honest, and unless the battery has been purposefully been tampered with, it surely isn’t going to burst in flames or electrocute the passengers because manufacturers go to great deals to prohibit such a thing from happening. Still, this general paranoia keeps a lot of Indians from going the electric route.
- No real innovation in the segment due to lackluster sales: Manufacturers have a tendency to give the customer what they ask in a vehicle. Rarely do they go to the trouble of innovating something new, especially when it comes to two wheelers. Innovation in this sector has been lacking for some time now and it doesn’t seem it’s going to change for a while.
Now, while the scooter segment has been lacking in new electric innovation, it doesn’t mean the same for bikes and companies like Harley Davidson, LitoSora, Zero SR are constantly working to make people shift to electric bikes. The dawn of electric vehicles will be upon us sooner than expected, but it just isn’t happening now.