Hero Electric set to launch electric scooters

Hyderabad, May 21 (UNI) With an aim to sell 70,000 vehicles across India in FY 2008-09, Hero Electric, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Hero Group, today announced its plans to launch in July this year a new range of electric scooters in the low and high-speed Electric Vehicles (EV) category.

The company also announced an investment of about Rs 80 crore to boost its EV manufacturing plant in Ludhiana in Punjab besides the development of its R and D facility at New Delhi.

The company had also expanded its state-of-the-art manufacturing plant at Ludhiana by doubling its capacity to 1.25 lakh units annually besides stepping up research and development for innovation in EVs.

Company Managing Director Naveen Munjal said the company planned to double the dealership network in Southern States to push sales.

''We have identified the Southern States as high-potential territories for our electric vehicles and we foresee accelerated growth in these markets,'' he said It would double its dealership network in Andhra Pradesh to 250, including Tier II towns, to reach a wider segment as it targets a 40 per cent increase in sales from the 4,000 vehicles sold last year in the state.

The company would also invest in training the dealers to educate consumers on the benefits and features of EVs.

''We have also set aside a marketing budget to train our dealers to educate customers on this relatively new and green technology, which has a running cost of ten paise per km.'' UNI DB VA SJ GM 1750