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-   -   Honda’s first electric scooter for India confirmed for March 2025 (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motorbikes/285227-honda-s-first-electric-scooter-india-confirmed-march-2025-a-4.html)

Not for the Activa E. It's seen for the lower model, yes.

Swappable batteries are an excellent idea, but these should be in addition to home charging. Not sure how Honda thought to eliminate home charging completely on the Activa E. I hope this is just a misinformation.

Lack of underseat storage + no home-charger? Not even the Activa brand name can save that combination.

Seems like it will take some time for Honda to get successful in the Electric scooter market.

The QC1 gets a very unusual 50km/hr speed limit. Except for the delivery services guys and elderly people, there's no market for it unless they price it aggressively.

The Activa E seems to do better with 80km/h speed, but I still can't recall when was the last time a manufacturer was successful with these swappable battery models in India. Plus, for that battery in Activa E, the charging stations are currently only available in Bangalore. It might take a minimum of a year to establish a network well within everyone's reach and maybe, by that time, people will forget about it.

So they took all this time to launch this. Will have to see how the market responds, Vida V1 has swappable battery and it's sales are less than stellar.

I am not a fan of swappable NMC battery. Considering the roads in our cities that are getting worse by the day with concrete roads, the battery contact area will be exposed to vibrations and dust. Just think about the cycles of swapping they undergo, considering the small kWh battery.

Finally the EV from Honda's table, Activa did a revolution in the scooter market, we need to watch how their EV is going to be received by the masses.

A home charging dock for the swap batteries could help sales to an extent. Otherwise, I feel the Activa E could be dead on arrival. They should carry over the design and screen to the ICE Activa. The other 2W EV players have nothing to lose their sleep over.
Or Honda prices it super aggressively. Which has never happened like ever.

Autocars walkaround video specifically mentions that you cannot charge the Activa E at home and that you must rely on the battery swapping stations.

https://youtu.be/4FGFAJkX93M?si=Hx8S1nrv-FS16Goh&t=174
time = 2:52

Big mistake. A home charger should've been the primary consideration, the swapping network coming later.

Hero Vida has removable battery not swappable battery. The Bounce Infinity is a direct competitor with swappable battery tech.

Coming back to this launch, what is Honda even thinking? They launch their EV products at last and the desirability quotient of them are still NILL. No under seat storage, no home charging option, low battery capacity and almost no USP. They have taken the Indian consumers for granted due to their Activa sales, I hope they are taught a good lesson by the consumers, you can't just keep riding on the Activa brand and launch useless products and hope it to sell well.

There are two models. One has home charging plus ample underseat storage

Yes. The complaint is regarding the Activa E. The one shown above is Activa QC1. The QC1 has crass specs while the E version has no home charging facility or underseat storage. It would have been easier to just give the premium version a usable underseat storage with bigger, non swappable battery and a charging port. Honda messed up here.

The ACI video walkaround by Rishad was very categoric on this and he / ACI are generally quite credible. So unlikely unfortunately that its misinformation.

This was my thought exactly. If you can’t charge an EV at home, it’s a deal breaker for most IMO. Worse still, it’s not even on a public charger network but now dependent on a brand new network which will have to be developed from scratch.

I can still live without underseat storage - you can find aftermarket cheap top box solutions to compensate, but the charging issue is fatal. Even with two batteries it’s offering a very modest claimed range of 100 kms. God knows how much of that range will have to be invested in dead miles just for swapping the battery.

Honda says electric two-wheelers viable without subsidies

"Our pricing strategy will not be dependent on any government subsidies,” Director for sales and marketing.

Link:

They took the longest time among all manufacturers to come out with this? Why would anyone in non tier 1 cities buy this? Heck, why would anyone in tier 1 want to buy this?

I am an existing Ather 450X owner and here is my perspective on Activa E:

1. Freedom from range anxiety. I can travel to any part of the city without need to spend at least an hour to get my scooter charged again. Even if I have to ride few extra miles to reach to the swapping station, it is still worth as swapping the batteries is a matter of few minutes.
2. No fear of costs involved in battery replacement after few years. Battery as a Service simply removes this replacement cost and hence the scooter life can be at par with the ICE Activa.

IMO, Honda has a unique offering here. The upfront cost of the scooter and the subscription cost will shape the market response for sure.

Here's the thing though. Rishaad in the Autocar video mentions that you can expect a range of 80kms for normal usage before you swap.

Most ICE scooters give you between 200 - 250kms of range. For the Active E, you will need to swap 2-3 times as frequently. It will take years before battery swapping stations become as ubiquitous as fuel pumps so you will have to go further to find one. Given that the Hero Vida has removable batteries and home charging , it should have been simple for Honda add a charging port.

This combined with the lack of underseat storage (one of the big reasons to buy a scoot in India) means that this launch is quite a brain fart.