Honda reveals future plans for electric bikes in India
Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has announced their roadmap and future business direction for electric bikes in India. The Japanese two-wheeler maker is planning to come up with a dedicated EV factory, dedicated EV platform and dedicated EV workshop.
Their aim is to create healthy and sustainable EV market in India. The company also announced its Future Business Direction for expansion of overseas business and production capacity in the upcoming financial year.
Factory ‘E’ – dedicated EV manufacturing facility
They will setup a specialised manufacturing facility – Factory E which is being established at HMSI’s Narsapura Plant in Karnataka. It will exclusively focus on the production of electric vehicles.
The company claims Honda EVs will utilise domestically manufactured components such as batteries and PCU. The motor will be designed and produced in-house by Honda.
The factory will have an 80 percent sustainable material ratio and close to 100 percent renewable energy rate. The facility will ramp up in a stage wise manner to produce 10 lakh EV units by 2030.
Platform ‘E’ – dedicated EV platform
Platform ‘E’ will serve as the foundation for a variety of EV models, including fixed battery type, swappable battery type and mid-range EV.
HMSI will launch two new two-wheeler EVs in FY2024. The first one will be a mid-range Electric Vehicle and the second, a swappable battery type that utilises the Honda Mobile Power Pack e:
Workshop ‘E’ – dedicated EV workshop
Charging stations will be installed across HMSI’s existing 6000+ network touch points. Eventually some of them will be transformed into Workshop ‘E’, the exclusive set-up will house HEID battery exchangers and mini battery exchangers for swappable battery type and charging cables for fixed battery type.
Additionally, HMSI plans to leverage the overall ecosystem, including Battery swapping stations at petrol pumps, metro stations and other locations.
