It is fair to say that Honda’s foray into the EV market hasn’t panned out as the company would have wanted with fairly slow sales of its Activa e: and QC1 models. Sales eventually shrank to a halt with the company even stopping manufacturing of these scooters some months ago. Now we have learned that to mount a fresh charge on the burgeoning Indian electric scooter market.
- This new Honda e-scooter will be heavily localised to keep pricing competitive
- Expect comparable range numbers and features like the market leaders from TVS, Bajaj and Ather
New Honda electric scooter in the works
Upcoming scooter will also be heavily localised to keep costs down
Honda’s long-awaited entry into the EV market was with the Activa e: and QC1, both of which are based on international models that have been re-engineered for our market. The Activa e: is the only scooter in India which comes with a factory-supported battery-swapping network but the problem is that said network is far too small and therefore you have to be located close to a swapping station to even consider buying one because there’s no provision for home charging.
Another big drawback is that as a result of the batteries being located under the seat, there’s next to no bootspace available - which is a big miss when most mainstream electric scooters routinely offer 30-35 litres of storage, if not more. The Activa e:’s high price and monthly subscription costs - you can only buy it on the BaaS (Battery as a Service) scheme - also did not help matters.
With the QC1, both of those problems were solved because it has a 26 litre boot and home charging capability but this scooter came with its own set of compromises. With a rather low 50kph top speed and only an 80km claimed IDC range (with a full charge taking almost 7 hours) the QC1 felt quite underpowered and underequipped in comparison to mainstream EVs.
Honda has taken the learnings from these two scooters and is now reportedly working on a new electric scooter which is expected to address the problems of both the aforementioned scooters. What that means is you can expect an EV with a decently spacious boot, comparable range to the market leaders like TVS iQube, Bajaj Chetak and Ather Rizta and a decent feature-set as well as equipment list. Honda will also want to get the pricing right and is looking to heavily localise this scooter for that very reason.
There’s no confirmation regarding the launch timeline of this upcoming Honda e-scooter and you can expect more details to trickle in closer to its debut.
With inputs from KETAN THAKKAR
