“I think on the demand side we’ve done fantastically well. Today the vast majority of scooter buyers are considering electric when they go into the purchase cycle and almost 20% of them are actually buying electric,” says Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO of electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy.
In an interview on The Gist, Mehta lauded government support for lending a lot of “positive credibility” to the electric vehicle sector thereby giving it “consistent direction”. But he regretted that as a startup, Ather cannot apply for PLI subsidies since these are geared towards manufacturing.
“Despite being one of the largest sources of IP creation and one of the largest producers of electric tools,” PLI has eluded them. In his view, “the entire industry needs a whole bunch of homegrown technology,” and PLI would have been very useful.
“We run one of the largest R&D shops anywhere in the world, we have been pioneers for almost all technology and PLI will allow us to put some of the last pieces in play … we want to export but we don’t get PLI on exports.”
The homegrown technology stack is what distinguishes electric two wheeler makers from the legacy industry. In the former, the technology is grown and owned by them, in the case of the latter, much of their tech has come from Japan: so Hero Honda, Kawasaki Bajaj, TVS Suzuki and so on.
While China has a huge two-wheeler industry of its own, Mehta argues that “China is not interested in e-two wheelers because they want to build public transport and cars. Japan does not really believe in electric … so I think this is a remarkable opportunity for us given the unfolding market for electric vehicles.”
India has a lead here, Mehta says, “I think we are absolutely the leaders and we should maintain this lead going forward, so when it comes to the big guns in India today, the top five manufacturers TVS, Ather, Bajaj, Hero Motocorp and Ola and between us I think we have 80 to 85% of the industry and all have been doing a lot of their own R&D.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO Ather Energy.
