The dream run for India’s electric two-wheeler market has come to an sharp halt this month, threatening to put the government’s plan to electrify the world’s largest scooter and motorcycle market in a slow lane.
Registration of electric two-wheelers has plunged in June 2023 as buyers restrained their purchase following a 15-18% price hike after the union government lowered subsidy. The volume dropped to the lowest in 16 months at 35,461 units till June 27, show data available on the Vahan vehicle registration portal.
Adjusted for the remaining four days, based on the current daily volume run of 1,363 units, June sales volume is likely to be around 40,000-40,500 units. This would imply a month-on-month decline of 61%. Based on the last five-month average (Jan-May) of 77,728 units, the drop is estimated to be 47%.
Sales of electric two-wheelers in June fell to 1,363 units per day from 3,391 in May – a month in which sales were boosted by buying ahead of the cut in subsidy amount under the FAME scheme, which seeks to promote EV adoption.
Ravneet S Phokela, Chief Business Officer at Ather Energy, said: “We were anticipating a negative impact, though the drop is slightly more than expected.” Its volume contracted 35-40% compared with last month, but it expects sales to pick up next month.
“We may be heading for only 60% achievement of the 2.3-million-unit target set by the Niti Aayog due to the subsidy blockage getting accentuated,” said Sohinder Gill, Director-General of the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles.
