[PapaBravo]

It would have been great of we could see the Feb-20 figures as well. I have a feeling that Feb-21 & similar period would be an aberration since this would be post Covid purchases.

Not sure what the scenario is in other cities, but I can notice a huge surge in number of 2-wheelers in the last two years in Kolkata since people have been avoiding public transport
& switching to two wheelers.

[yamaniac]

There are so many options to choose from when it comes to the second hand two wheeler market. I just bought a 2 year old jupiter for a steal and that was sparingly used by its previous owner. He needed cash urgently, and I got a sweet deal.

I did think about buying a new one, but the price for a new scooter is just insane. I think many have jumped on to buy used two wheelers, because it just seems reasonable.

Our apartment watchman bought a 5 year old used hero glamour, for 20k. Makes sense to him instead of spending 1L+ on a new scooter.

[gauravanekar]

Few observations from my side:
1. We don’t have enough data to sense the trend correctly, one should plot m-o-m sales data for atleast 3 years including one year of pre-pandemic data (whichever is longer)
2. We have ZERO data from two other segments, Own-design EV segment and CKD-EV segment.

So any inference or judgement on current economy or middle class buying power with the current data is moot.

Anecdote:
My colleague approached me for advice on selecting second hand activa, I asked him following questions:
1. How many kms/day?
2. Planning to tour long distance or not?
3. Can you lift 15-20kg battery out of scooter twice/week to charge it (if running cost is significantly low)?
4. Are you particular about speed/acc./handling or do you want point A to point B vehicle?

You get the drift on where I am going.

He ended up deciding to drop petrol scooter idea and is looking for a cheap E-scooter.

If e-scooter makes better financial sense compared to even a second hand ICE scooter, then there is no surprise that ICE scooters are not selling.

[RijuC]

Originally Posted by pandabear

Electrical engineering guys will agree it is not very expensive to increase a few windings of coil especially if that is the main product differentiator, if it can go a bit faster than the competition then it's going to sell more, price difference is not doing to be much. Just a low hanging fruit. increasing the wattage is not as tough as it looks. Battery capacity or range is different thing altogether. Sorry I am getting a bit out of topic but the point I am trying to say is these unofficial low-cost offerings are are sure eating into regular two wheeler sales.

Spotted this beauty last week, utilitarian design,

It is just not the addition of few windings to increase power and thereby a marginal increase in the cost structure.

To increase the power of an e-scooter, apart from the motor windings, the cable size (conductor thickness, insulation), the battery size, battery charger capacity (we can't wait for many more hours to charge a higher capacity battery), fuse and other electronics ratings- everything increase. And altogether it pushes up the cost significantly.

The photograph of the e-scooter you posted is very popular here in Gurgaon among the grocery delivery guys. Here we have many local grocery stores which provide supply directly and also for the smaller app based grocery supply chains (otipy, frazo etc.). And they all have multiple number of such two wheelers. It's a low cost supply chain solution for them. They don't need longer ranges.

One of my senior colleague lost job last year. He started a dealership of these e-scooters and e-rickshaw for sales and after sales. Seems to be a good revenue model.

Coming to two wheeler sales and grassroot economy correlation, I would like to say that surprisingly our Indian power system have surplus power. And that means demand has gone down drastically. Is it due to reduction in heavy engineering, industrial consumption/ lack of domestic consumption or more renewables?

Consumption should be low because we are seeing job loss, salary cut or salary stagnation, indirect increase of income tax, no increase in savings slabs (hence grassroot salaried people are compelled to control the consumption- in order to save more), companies shutting down operations completely or in "shrink to survive" mode, core engineering sectors are on death-bed.

At present we do not have adequate charging infrastructure for eV/ e-scooter in rural and semi-rural/ semi-urban areas.

[RGK]

I had a casual conversation with a roadside mechanic a few weeks ago, and he stated business is strong today. He also stated that there has been a significant growth in the number of service shops in recent months/years.

I believe that two-wheeler sales have been harmed as a result of price increases, rising petrol expenses, and the influx of electric vehicles.

[pogo0120]

People are waiting for good electric scooter. That's it. Petrol prices at 110 + last month has forced people to think on petrol two wheeler s again. There is no good electric two wheeler in market. People are waiting, including me. My next two wheeler is going to be an electric, Not petrol.