Activa Electric launch soon…? Looks like it as Honda has revealed its complete roadmap for its electric business. Products, conversion, expansion, it has all…
Most of the major two-wheeler manufacturers are in the market with their electric offerings, including arch rival Hero MotoCorp. However, the Japs are still playing the wait and watch game. Their is no electric vehicle from the Jap trio of Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda in India yet.
Today the biggest of them all – Honda announced its electric roadmap for our market. Honda will launch not one but two electric 2-wheelers in India within the next financial year ie between April 2023 to March 2024. Both of them are likely to be scooters with one being a fixed battery model and the other one will have the swappable battery functionality.
The first one will be the more conventional scooter which has been defined as a ‘mid-range’ electric vehicle by Honda. It will come with a fixed battery set-up and is likely to be based on or harp the popularity of Activa. The other planned model will utilize Honda Mobile Power Pack e. No other details have been shared on the two products apart from these.
Electrification Target
Honda intends to take its production capacity of electric vehicles to 1 million units by 2030. For this, it is establishing a dedicated facility for electric vehicles (called as Factory E) in the company’s Narsapura Plant in Karnataka. Honda also informs that it will manufacture key components like battery and PCU in India and the development and design will also be done in-house here.
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On the product front, the company has developed a platform E that will spawn various models in the future. To cater to the charging needs, Honda will install chargers across its 6000+ touchpoints across India. Some of these dealerships will be totally converted to serve to its electric customers and will also offer battery swapping apart from other facilities.
All of this means that the company is now in the execution stage and electric will be a key point of focus for this year. With two products (and their variants), it will take the game head on against rivals. However, unlike the ICE 2-wheelers, competition also includes very strong start-ups in the electric space. It will be very interesting to see how will Honda approach this battle…
