BSA Motors forays into the electric scooters segment

Bangalore, Sep 11 (UNI) BSA Motors, a Strategic Business Unit of Tube Investments of India (TII), part of the Rs 9582 crore Murugappa Group, today announced its venture into the electronic scooters segment.

Addressing a press conference here, BSA Motors Head K B Srinivasan said, ''the eScooters segment is presently an Rs 450 crore market in India and the industry is expected to double it in a year's time.'' The BSA Motors factory at Chennai has a production capacity of 100 eScooters a day in the low and high speed categories. These eScooters would be marketed under the aegis of the BSA brand. The target markets would be the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Goa.

Mr Srinivasan said, '' Karnataka is a potential market for eScooters as the state leads life style trends in the South and is booming in the IT, retail, real estate segments. Hence, there is a discerning need to own an eScooters to fulfil the increasing needs of transportation.'' He said the company had invested around Rs 20 crore for designing and testing of eScooters. A lot of importance had been given to R&D to ensure that the products were of international quality, suiting the Indian customer.

The Ambattur plant would have facility for painting, assembling and testing of eScooters. The low speed eScooters came with a top speed of 25kmph and high speed models up to 45kmph, he added.

BSA Motors would be setting up around 70 dealership networks in the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala by the end of March 2009, he said adding it also had plans to foray into northern markets after six months of launching in the South.

Recharge points will come up in different parts of key cities in an attempt to promote the category. BSA Motors had also arranged for facilities to avail two wheeler loans in every state in which it was launching the new category, he added.

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