The electric two-wheeler manufacturers are finding innovative ways for maintaining the momentum of sales after the festive season has come to a halt. These firms are adopting sales methods of traditional gasoline-run vehicle makers for convincing customers to switch to electric vehicles.
A buy-back scheme was announced by Hero MotoCorp during the launch of its Vida scooter in October. Under this scheme, buyers are able to sell their scooter back to the brand at an assured value of 70 per cent within the first three years of buying it.
Meanwhile, Bounce, a two-wheeler battery-swapping player, has begun a rental scheme for customers. Under the scheme, the product, Bounce Infinity, can be experienced by the buyers for a short term, which ranges from a few weeks to a few months, before they decide to buy the scooter.
Ather Energy has rolled out schemes to counter an expected dip in the industry volume post the festive season. It has announced an exchange program, which will end in a few months, that allows the owners of petrol two-wheelers to trade in their vehicles for an Ather scooter.
The deduction of exchange value will be done from the payment for the new electric scooter. This will lower the upfront costs. Buyers will also receive Rs 4,000 as an exchange bonus. The scheme has been announced along with options for long-tenure financing with low down payments. The scheme is also offering free access to the company’s fast-charging network Ather Grid until December 2023.
Ravneet Phokela, a chief business officer at Ather Energy, told Mint that they have established a new factory and increased production. He went on to say that Ather is also expanding experience centres, with 10-12 of them opening each month.
He further added that they are ensuring that the firm is pushing the system to capacity on the manufacturing side, and now the same philosophy is being applied by them to the business side as well. According to him, Ather Energy is opening more outlets, and they are making sure that the slowing down of industry numbers doesn’t cause their momentum to drop.
According to Phokela, the pricing of Ather 450X hasn’t been changed by the brand because the scooter is positioned as a premium product.
As per the vehicle’s registration data on the firm’s VAHAN dashboard, registrations of electric two-wheelers in November increased by a modest 1 per cent in comparison to October to over 76,000 units. Registrations of internal combustion engine two-wheelers grew 8 per cent in the same period. The penetration of electric two-wheelers dipped to 4.1 per cent against 4.5 per cent in the larger market in October.
