The Indian electric two-wheeler industry, which raced past the one million unit sales milestone for the first time in a calendar year early in November 2024, has seen a good November. Historically, retail sales witness a sizeable drop after a festive month like October but with 1,91,513 units (up 24 percent YoY), November 2024 has delivered the third best monthly numbers in the first 11 months of the current year. The festival-laden October 2024 (2,19,018 units) is the topper, followed by the FAME II subsidy-ending month of March 2024 (1,41,737 units) and then November 2024 (1,91,513 units).

India EV Inc's November sales of 1,91,513 units are up 24 percent YoY and constitute the third-best month after October (2,19,018 units) and March (2,13,064 units). e2W retails of 1,18,924 units (up 29 percent) account for a 62 percent share of total EV sales.

As per the latest retail sales data on the Vahan website (December 1, 2024, 7am), cumulative e2W sales from January 1 to November 30 at 10,74,008 units are a robust 37 percent YoY increase (January-November 2023: 784,473 units). 

Of the 210-odd players in this sub-segment of the EV industry, the top four – Ola Electric, TVS Motor Co, Bajaj Auto and Ather Energy – have each registered six-figure retails in the first 11 months of this year, resulting in strong market shares. Meanwhile, Hero MotoCorp, Greaves Electric Mobility, Revolt Motors, Bgauss Auto and Kinetic Green are also making their presence felt in the sector. Here we will be taking a closer look at the top six OEMs.

Ola Electric: 29,191 units

Ola Electric, which grabbed the headlines recently with the launch of two new products, the S1 Z as well as the Ola Gig, registered retail sales of 29,191 units in November, down 3 percent YoY (November 2023: 30,073 units) and down 30 percent month on month (October 2024: 41,775 units). Deliveries of the S1 Z and Gig are slated to begin only next year, around April-May.

Ola’s November retails take its cumulative 11-month total this year to 3,93,648 units, up by a strong 66 percent YoY, and ensures that the company will become the first Indian EV maker to sell 4 lakh units in a single calendar year and will likely achieve this record milestone in the first week of December. In September, Ola became the first Indian EV OEM to surpass 3 lakh unit sales in a calendar year.

TVS Motor Company: 26,971 units 

TVS Motor Co sold 26,971 units of its iQube e-scooter range in November 2024, up 41 percent YoY. This gives it a market share of 23 percent for last month and 19 percent for the January-November 2024 period with cumulative retails of 202,903 units, up 32 percent YoY.

The iQube’s November sales also mean that TVS has become the second Indian e-two-wheeler OEM, after Ola, to surpass the 2 lakh unit sales milestone in a single calendar year, with one more month to go in 2024.

The company, which has ample manufacturing capacity on hand, is strategically expanding the iQube dealer network. Currently estimated at around 750 touchpoints across India, TVS is increasing the network each month. The company, which expects two-wheeler EV sales in India to reach 30 percent market penetration by CY2025, plans to roll out a new electric scooter before the end of FY2025.

It will be among the moves that TVS, which is the longstanding No. 2 OEM in this segment and currently engaged in a fierce battle with Bajaj Auto, to protect its turf. In November 2024, the difference between TVS iQube and Bajaj Chetak sales was only 808 units.

Bajaj Auto: 26,163 units

Bajaj Auto which, like TVS, entered the e-two-wheeler market in January 2020, is hard on its legacy rival’s heels. Like TVS, Bajaj also dispatched a record 30,644 Chetaks to its dealers in October, ensuring that customer deliveries were smooth in November. The move seems to have paid off, given that 26,163 Chetaks were retailed last month, up 121 percent YoY. While November 2024 sales are down 8 percent month-on-month on festive October’s record 28,352 units, the fact is that since January’s 10,891 units, Bajaj has more than doubled its monthly sales 10 months down the year.

When December 2024 sales are counted, Bajaj Auto will become the third EV OEM to have surpassed the 200,000 sales milestone this year. Both the TVS iQube and Bajaj Chetak were launched in January 2020. While the TVS iQube has clocked cumulative retails of 4,22,157 units over the 59 months since launch, the Bajaj Chetak has sold a total of 2,78,044 units. 

However, Bajaj Auto’s speedy rate of growth is helping it to close the gap annually with TVS, which is the longstanding No. 2 e2W OEM. This comes about as a result of strong consumer demand for the Chetak, ramped-up production of nearly 20,000 units per month and an expanded Chetak retail sales network. Clearly, the last is not heard on the fierce battle between these two legacy OEMs for e-scooter supremacy.

Ather Energy: 12,741 units

Ather Energy completes the quartet of OEMs to sell over 1,00,000 units in the first 11 months of 2024. In November, the EV startup sold 12,741 units, up 36 percent YoY. The company, whose best sales this year have come in March (17,428 units), saw demand decline sharply in May and June but has returned to five-figure retails from June onwards (see 11-month retail sales data above). November 2024 retails give the Hosur-based OEM a market share of 11 percent compared to 10 percent a year ago.

Ather recently announced an optional 8 year/80,000km battery warranty that you can read about HERE.

Hero MotoCorp: 7,309 units

Hero MotoCorp continues to see sales of its two Vida e-scooters improve month on month. In November, the company registered retail sales of 7,309 units, its second highest monthly numbers in this year thus far. The much-improved performance is reflected in Hero MotoCorp’s growing market share, which has doubled to 6 percent from 3 percent in November 2024.

The Vida brand's cumulative 11-month retails at 42,625 units are a massive 347 percent YoY jump on a low year-ago base of just 9,542 units. This gives Hero MotoCorp a 4 percent share for the year to date. 

Hero MotoCorp has started scaling up brand presence for Vida and its network now stands at 203 touchpoints comprising 180 dealers across 116 cities. Hero’s electric motorcycle, being developed in collaboration with Zero Motorcycles, is in an advanced stage of development and to read more about that, tap HERE.

Greaves Electric Mobility: 4,468 units

Greaves Electric Mobility (GEM), which currently has a six-model portfolio of e-scooters has registered its best monthly retails in the year to date in November: 4,468 units, up marginally by 1 percent YoY.

GEM’s newest product – the Ampere Nexus launched in end-April – seems to be the key driver of this growth, which has been confirmed by the management. In an investor conference call on November 7, 2024, K Vijaya Kumar, Executive Director and CEO, Greaves Cotton said: “We are registering very robust growth month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter primarily based on our new product. The Nexus, which we launched two quarters before, is doing very well.”

Revolt Motors: 1,994 units

Revolt Motors has been aggressively expanding its dealership network across India, which now stands at 168 including 14 new ones opened in November alone. The new RV1 and RV1+ along with the expanded network seem to have accelerated sales. 

Revolt’s November retails at 1,994 units (up 197 percent YoY) are its highest monthly sales yet and take its January-November 2024 total to 8,947 units. This means it has already sold 1,970 additional bikes than its entire CY2023’s sales of 6,977 units. What’s more, the company, which was ranked 13th in January 2024 (533 units) has now jumped into No. 6 position units, with its market share rising to 1.67 percent from 0.72 percent in November 2023 and 0.82 percent in January 2024.

Honda enters the EV game with the electric Activa 

These top six players though have brand-new competition coming their way in the form of the Honda Activa e: and QC1, which mark the Japanese OEM’s entry into the Indian electric two-wheeler market. While Honda has not yet revealed the prices of the two EVs, considering that it has already achieved 99 percent localisation, one can expect the company to come up with disruptive pricing to unsettle the competition.

Also See: Honda Activa e: revealed with 102km range

All the top six OEMs – Ola (which has launched the S1 Z and Gig), TVS, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy, Hero MotoCorp and Greaves Electric Mobility – are aggressively working to come with up ‘affordable’ or lower priced EVs, more so in the wake of consistently reducing subsidies. Clearly, there’s plenty of exciting new product action to be expected in CY2025. Before that we have December still to be accounted for. So, stay plugged in for in-depth number-crunching.