Hero Electric to launch five new electric scooter models this year

Bangalore, May 27 (UNI) Hero Electric, a subsidiary of Hero Group, today announced its plans to launch a range of five Electric Scooters during the current fiscal.

Briefing reporters on the company's plans, Managing Director Naveen Munjal said the new models would include two in high speed and three in low speed category. The company already had two successful low speed models -- Maxi and Optima, in the market since last year.

Hero Electric had sold 21,000 scooters last year and it targetted of sell 70,000 during the current year. The National market for the two-wheeled EVs was expected to reach 1.6 lakh from last year's 70,000, he said.

"As the surging petrol price is expected to soar further, consumers are looking for economical methods of transportation.

Hero Electric's EVs are reasonably priced and the running costs is just a tenth of petrol driven vehicles. Under the MV Act, low speed electric vehicles needs no registration nor the rider need to take a driver's license," he said.

The presently avaiable models are available at Rs 29,000 to Rs 30,000 ex-shoroom in Delhi.

The company plans to spend Rs 80 crore this year mainly on capital expenditure. It would spend Rs 50 crore on plant and machinery in Ludhiana and Rs 20 crore at its R and D centre in Delhi, he said.

He said the battery life of the electric scooters was last for at least 300 charges and it need to be replaced once in a year at a cost of Rs 4000. It can run around 70 km on a single charge of the battery.

"This will work out less when you compare to the maintenance cost of a petrol driven vehicle," he said.

UNI RS RM TS1436