[gauravanekar]

Originally Posted by Sudarshan42

An Activa 125 DLX goes for almost a lakh rupees nowadays.

ICE scooter manufacturers are minting money while they can. Activas carry a fat profit margin for the manufacturer and dealer.
When push comes to shove, traditional scooter manufacturers will drop the price to make electric scooter seem comparatively expensive.
I don’t expect the price gap between ice and electric scooters bridged soon.

[AnishRanjan]

Originally Posted by Gansan

Post lockdown, I am riding/driving 52 km everyday to drop and pick up my wife from office, six days a week. About 1200 km a month. Even my Splendor at 60 Kmpl will consume around Rs 1900 worth of fuel per month. An Ather 450 may probably cost about Rs 300 to cover the same distance, a straight saving of Rs 1600 a month, about Rs 19k a year, if I buy it for cash.

So it is a no brainer for me to go the EV way, if my two wheeler needs a replacement now. But to replace it deliberately for this purpose, I will have to consider the oppurtunity cost of replacement as well. So I am continuing with the Splendor. People who are in the market for a new vehicle, should definitely consider the EVs first.

If you are a rider who has a high mileage travel requirement as quoted by you in your post, please consider the battery life quotient before putting your hard earned money into an electric two wheeler. The battery life starts depreciating from day one and the max life quoted by ather is 50,000 km. The replacement cost of the battery is a whooping 50,000 rupees. If you are averaging lets say 52 kms a day. In three years or so you will require a battery replacement.

These stats given by me are not mine but taken directly from ather website. Please check it out

https://www.atherenergy.com/faq/vehi...ge%20warranty.

Originally Posted by mvadg

I am wondering if EV manufacturers should be giving buyers a "range guarantee", for say, 10 years. Though there's an ARAI range, what happens after a year of use? 3 years? 5 years?
I doubt that the average user of an EV understands how battery life and battery performance deteriorate over time and use. How many understand the hefty cost of replacing the battery? I've already seen LED lamps become unusable before the end of their warranty period, but not fail. Many LED bulbs failed before their much vaunted 15 year life - of course, if most people are like me, the bill has long been thrown away and manufacturers are just laughing all the way to the bank.

10 years range guarantee is just a dream right now. Even Tesla is not giving such guarantee's i guess. Electric vehicles are a hit and miss right now. Its commercially not viable for people who travel a lot on a day to day basis. Range, battery life and replacement costs are a big worry. May be it is good for people who use it for very short distances occasionally.

[Sudarshan42]

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

ICE scooter manufacturers are minting money while they can. Activas carry a fat profit margin for the manufacturer and dealer.
When push comes to shove, traditional scooter manufacturers will drop the price to make electric scooter seem comparatively expensive.
I don’t expect the price gap between ice and electric scooters bridged soon.

Unlikely that such a large and widespread correction will happen across the entire industry, no? There could be a domino effect if one of the large players do this though. Let's see, the shift to electric will be gradual and not sudden, so lots of room for companies to course-correct.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by gauravanekar

When push comes to shove, traditional scooter manufacturers will drop the price to make electric scooter seem comparatively expensive.

And the govt can support e-vehicles by providing tax relief/subsidies or depend on traditional scooter (or general ICE vehicles) for tax gain from fuels. Not sure what helps the govt's net revenue.

The new internet derived companies sure know how to get VC money and go big instantly. Hope to see such newer companies to disrupt mobility.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by AnishRanjan

If you are averaging lets say 52 kms a day. In three years or so you will require a battery replacement.

Well, not exactly in three years but perhaps closer to four years. The money saved on fuel during the period will buy a new battery pack with some change left over.

My guess is the batteries will continue to gain range and reduce in price every five years. It is an evolving technology in which a lot of investments have happened. And the EVs bought today can hopefully accept the improved battery packs without much problem.

[mmxylorider]

All the best to OLA. With such a huge production capacity, I would not be surprised if they franchise out city specific operators who can run a fleet of such vehicles on rent. Economies of scale will be high and the operators will have a recourse for service and maintenance.

With such numbers, they can pull their weight with local authorities in providing infrastructure for such vehicles (charging, parking etc). I am also guessing, cities with metros might be targeted due to required last mile connectivity.

[arpanguha]

Ola's first model most probably would be based on Dutch startup Etergo's platform. They would have stripped the product down to the skeleton and Indianised (read, made suitable for India) the components, especially the powertrain.

Given Ola's domain of expertise, app based ride aggregation, they would most probably have a base product and multiple offerings differentiated only by the software (similar to Ather 450 plus and 450x, same hardware different software). Also, they might have a fleet specific model as well, driven by policy demands of 2-wheeler based delivery, etc. services slowly being moved to electric. This can be aided by the fact the original Etergo platform boasted removable battery, so swapping may be something on consideration.
Etergo's platform being already homologated in the Euro market would give Ola an advantage of launching globally in analogous markets, where they would most likely adopt dock-less model, as well as ownership/lease and upgrade models.
Connected services could be a key revenue builder, especially if offerings are granular (like pay only for features/updates of your choice or bundled offerings like Ather).
Ola can leverage their existing driver partner/fleet support mechanism available in all cities to provide on-demand after sales support similar to consumer electronics.

So all in all Ola has the capital, base technology and are building up capability to become the Gogoro as well as the Grab/Gojek of India.

[Venkatesh]

Vision of the Ola Future factory. With 10M units per year, it will be the largest 2W factory in the world, 15% of world’s capacity, With 3000+ robots, it'll be the most advanced and with 100 acres of forest, carbon negative operations, it will be the most sustainable.

https://youtu.be/tKEIPGWnJO0

Link

[anish5225]

I think the cost advantage of EVs will go away the moment a sizeable EV population starts running on our roads and the governments start to tax automotive electricity.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by anish5225

I think the cost advantage of EVs will go away the moment a sizeable EV population starts running on our roads and the governments start to tax automotive electricity.

But lot of (or aleast some) people can definitely generate electricity at their home/office/workplace and use that to recharge their EVs.

Scooter with swappable battery is definitely interesting for me. Make it happen Ola. You'll have my money. That's the only thing preventing many of us apartment dwellers from going Electric.

[anish5225]

Originally Posted by joslicx

But lot of (or aleast some) people can definitely generate electricity at their home/office/workplace and use that to recharge their EVs.

I wish that happens. But governments think out of the box and become really innovative when it comes to generating tax money. A dedicated powergrid for running EV chargers with different V/A ratings than household electricity? :-)

[V.Narayan]

I wish Bhavish Aggarwal, who is an extra-ordinarily bright person, all the best. My knowledge is limited but I cannot put my arms around building two entirely different industries under the same roof - manufacturing and services. But I'm sure they did their homework.

This attempt at a disruptive business model is possible only if two key conditions are met - (i) oodles of equity capital that hope to get a return from market capitalization appreciation {and not profitability}; and (ii) no expectation or need to turn a net profit after tax or generate cash from of the business. I guess for now OLA has both criterion met. The magic will lie in (a) finding the synergy where you capture the supply chain of the market from farm to fork in the personal road transport industry; and (b) in execution. Never under estimate execution. The mind set needed to build vast factories and design & produce an engineering product to quality standard is a whole lot different from the mind set needed to deliver a service over a large geography. But time will tell us if I am wrong in my doubts. As I said if you don't need to generate cash or show a profit then everything is possible. Then you are like a giant Govt initiative that needs to get something big done (ISRO Mangalyaan, Bakhra Nangal, Konkan Railway) with no worries about churning out cash in a defined timeline.

I wonder if it is in the interests of the nation i.e. consumers that the taxi service provider also makes the vehicles. In the early 1930s Boeing was the largest aircraft builder in USA and its subsidiary United Airlines was the largest airline. The US Govt forced a break up and separation of the two parts to prevent one monopoly company owning the entire supply chain. Let's see how this unfolds.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by anish5225

I think the cost advantage of EVs will go away the moment a sizeable EV population starts running on our roads and the governments start to tax automotive electricity.

That may not happen to the extent where EVs become on par with ICE vehicles. Even if they double the per unit cost for EVs from the present level, they will still remain attractive. Government WANTS people to switch to EVs, and is unlikely to disrupt the switch.

Marginally more coal may need to be burnt to produce the extra power for them, but the the offset from keeping fuel burning vehicles off the road and less import of petroleum will outweigh it.

[Torino]

What really caught my eyes are the unique rear suspension layout and the 3x portable banana battery modules. This clever design creates a whopping 50 litres (18L in Activa 6G) of under seat storage space and still do a claimed 240 kms range!









source

[shortbread]

I would like to politely disagree Sir....

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I wonder if it is in the interests of the nation i.e. consumers that the taxi service provider also makes the vehicles. In the early 1930s Boeing was the largest aircraft builder in USA and its subsidiary United Airlines was the largest airline. The US Govt forced a break up and separation of the two parts to prevent one monopoly company owning the entire supply chain. Let's see how this unfolds.

Firstly Boeing/United Airlines is different because Boeing does not sell planes to individual consumers.

Plenty of automotive manufacturers are now investing in ride hailing apps. GM & JLR have invested in Lyft, FCA in Waymo, BMW in Scoop etc...

The ride hailing app business is disruptive because the users can simply bypass investing in their own vehicle, so for a car maker this is lost business already. Therefore manufacturers are simply diversifying into markets where they are not present currently. The app using consumer is not a car buyer, so this is how a car company looks to get their business. They might not buy the car, but use their service nonetheless.

OLA is doing the same thing but in the opposite direction. People who use their own personal scooters as their primary means of transport are not OLA app consumers. This again is lost business, which is currently provided by the likes of TVS, Honda etc. So OLA is diversifying into a sector where it is not currently present.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

This attempt at a disruptive business model is possible only if two key conditions are met - (i) oodles of equity capital that hope to get a return from market capitalization appreciation {and not profitability}; and (ii) no expectation or need to turn a net profit after tax or generate cash from of the business. I guess for now OLA has both criterion met. The magic will lie in

Disruption can also be due to introducing a product into a massively underserved market. Look at the number of locally assembled cheap chinese scooters that are plying on Indian roads.

Today a person looking for an Electric two wheeler in India have only two options:

OPTION 1) Very expensive models form mainstream manufacturers with extremely poor availability

3 players in this segment, Bajaj, TVS and Ather. The two majors manufacture about hundred odd scooters a month and sell them in only two cities with a big backlog of orders.

Ather has wider availability (yet restricted to major cities), but costs anywhere between 1.5-2 lacs on road, depending on the city.

OPTION 2) Cheaper chinese scooters from local assemblers

Hero, Okinawa etc... Brittle, tacky but cheaper. Doubtful longevity of product, manufacturer and after sales support!

There is a big vacuum in India for a credible EV two wheeler, a highly lucrative opportunity .