Despite the reduced subsidy, the buyer-friendly festive season schemes and attractive deals offered by e-two-wheeler OEMs, October retail sales were the second-highest in this calendar year to date, after March 2024 (1,40,333 units).

Ola Electric: 41,605 units

After two torrid months of selling less than 28,000 units (August: 27,615 and September: 24,716) which reduced its market share to less than 30 percent, Ola Electric has sold 41,605 units in October 2024. This is a month-on-month increase of 68 percent and a YoY growth of 74 percent. The company has also surpassed its entire CY2024 retails of 267,376 units and has sold an additional 96,885 units till end-October.

Ola’s sales decline in August and September were attributed to a large number of customer complaints about service deficiencies. However, following the recently listed company’s assurance that it had addressed 99.1 percent of the complaints to the satisfaction of its customers through its redressal mechanism, sales have revived in October.

As a result, Ola’s market share which was at 27 percent in September – down by 11 percent it commanded in March and July – has regained momentum in October with 30 percent market share. In September, Ola became the first EV OEM to surpass 3 lakh units sales in a calendar year.

In an effort to address service issues, Ola Electric has announced a Network Partner programme aimed at being logistically closer to its customers. As per a September 26 tweet by CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, 625 partners are already in place. This will be expanded to 1,000 by the festive season and to 10,000 by end-2025.

TVS: 29,890 units

Stung by Bajaj Auto taking the No. 2 spot in September, TVS has fought back and regained second position in October. With retail sales of 29,890 units, the company has registered strong 81 percent YoY growth (October 2023: 16,507 units) and got a market share of 21 percent last month. For the first 10 months of this year, TVS had a market share of 18.41 percent.

Like Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor too dispatched the highest number of iQubes to its dealers in October – 28,564 units and the move has paid off because it's October retails are its highest monthly numbers yet.

Also See: New TVS electric two-wheeler launch by March 2025

Bajaj: 28,188 units

Bajaj Auto continues to reap rich dividends in the e-scooter market. The company, which dispatched a record monthly high of 28,517 Chetaks in September to its dealers across India ahead of the festive season kicking in, has sold 28,188 Chetaks in October 2024, up 211 percent YoY (October 2023: 9,070 units). Like TVS, this is Bajaj Auto’s best monthly score yet.

In September 2024, Bajaj with 19,198 units had gone ahead of longstanding No. 2 OEM, TVS Motor Co (18,218 units) but TVS regained traction and its second rank in October with 29,890 units. This means the Bajaj Chetak has a 20 percent market share in October and 15.56 percent for the first 10 months of this year.

Bajaj’s YoY speedy rate of growth compared to TVS is helping it close the gap with the longstanding No. 2 e2W OEM. This is a result of surging consumer demand, ramped-up production of nearly 20,000 units per month and an expanded Chetak retail sales network.

Ather Energy: 15,984 units

Ather Energy maintains its No. 4 rank with 15,984 units in October, up 88 percent YoY (October 2023: 8,484 units). The company registered its best monthly sales in March (17,427 units) but slid to 4,143 units in April. Since then, Ather retails has risen month on month right till October. October retails give the Hosur-based OEM a market share of 11.49 percent compared to 6 percent a year ago.

Vida (Hero MotoCorp): 7,309 units

The world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer and the last of the big legacy players to enter the EV market is seeing demand pick up for its Vida brand of e-scooters. The company, which hit its best-ever monthly retails of 7,309 units in October 2024, clocked 443 percent YoY growth on a low year-ago base of 1,937 units. The strong performance is seen in the increased market share to 5 percent from 1 percent in October 2023.

Hero MotoCorp has started scaling up brand presence for Vida and its network now stands at 203 touchpoints comprising 180 dealers across 116 cities.And it already has 2,500 charging stations in collaboration with Ather Energy, in which Hero MotoCorp was an early investor.

Like all the leading EV OEMs, Hero MotoCorp too is focusing on reducing product cost. In an earnings conference call on August 14, Niranjan Gupta, CEO, Hero MotoCorp said: “We are working very aggressively, and on the powertrain side, to bring the costs down by technological improvements, by localization, obviously, by bringing scale. You will see that benefit coming out into our further launches as well. You'll see affordable products coming out later this year.”

Greaves Electric Mobility: 3,981 units

Greaves Electric Mobility (GEM), the fifth-ranked OEM in this list, sold 3,981 e-scooters in October 2024, down 5 percent YoY (October 2023: 4,184 units). GEM launched its new Ampere Nexus e-scooter on April 30. GEM’s cumulative 10-month sales at 27,782 units are a 67 percent increase over the 16,650 units in the January-October 2023 period. Its October 2024 and first 10 months of CY2024 market shares are identical at 3 percent.

Greaves Electric Mobility, like the other five OEMs above it, is also focussing on cost optimisation. In a Q1 FY2025 earnings call on August 13, executive director and CEO K Vijaya Kumar said: “We have been able to make considerable inroads in terms of our costing of key components and products on one side. The other side is broadly we have looked at our cost, sort of a cost rationalisation wherein we are getting closer to building our efficiencies much higher than where we were.”

Also See: Ola Electric claims to have addressed 99.1 percent of complaints against it