World Motorcycle News

Hero Electric on Thursday said that it would be rapidly expanding the infrastructure for electric vehicles by setting up recharging stations, thereby augmenting the demand for such bikes

Currently the company has 12 charging stations which are operational in the national capital and it plans to expand it to 10,000 charging stations.

“We are planning to set up 2000 outlets to facilitate electric bike owners to recharge their vehicle. We hope to expand the number of stations to 10,000 over the next three years,” said the company’s Managing Director, Mr Naveen Munjal.

Explaining the business model, he said that the company had trained mechanics of existing garage owners to provide recharging and servicing facility for electric vehicles also.

The cost of charging the battery is Rs 5 an hour, allowing the vehicle to cover a distance of approximately 10-20 km. Mr Munjal declined to comment on the investment for setting up the charging station stating that the company was hoping to bring down the cost per unit gradually and after the initial period, there could be joint investment made from the dealers end who would be setting up such stations.

The company also intends to set up stations at popular places like parking lots, malls, schools throughout the country to cater to the infrastructure requirement for selling electric vehicles.

The company from April-July sold around 18,000 units and plans to sell 65,000 units by the year end. Hero Electric has a total capacity of around 70,000 units to produce its range of electric vehicles like Maxi and the Optima.

Hero Electric is working on hybrid technology for vehicles which could lead the company to eventually manufacture the country’s first hybrid passenger cars.

“As of now, we are working on developing hybrid technology for vehicles. Once we are able to develop the technology it could see us using it for making passenger cars or even commercial vehicles,” Hero Electric Managing Director

But this project may take some time as manufacturing of hybrid cars was not immediately on the agenda as the company’s research and development team was still working on the technology.

Mr Munjal said Hero Electric, which was a 100 per cent subsidiary of Hero Exports, would soon come out of its fold and become an independent company under the Hero Group. “As Hero Electric has been performing well, the management decided to have its own independent entity.” He said once this development happens, the company would look at raising funds through the debt route. He added that the company would be open to talks with those who might want to tie up with Hero Electric for a joint venture.

Mr Munjal said he expects the electric vehicle market to expand rapidly because of rising fuel prices. The market size of electric two-wheelers in India was around 70,000 units in 2007, and during the current year, it had increased to 1.6 lakh units.

Hero Electric itself can produce 440 units a day across two shifts and plans to sell about 70,000 units this calendar year. In 2007, it sold about 21,000 units of its two models which cost between Rs 29,000 and Rs 31,000.

TVS Motor Company on Monday announced that two of its directors from the promoter family, Mr Gopal Srinivasan and Mr T.K. Balaji, had resigned.

They are, respectively, brother and brother-in-law of TVS Motor Company Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan.

Mr Gopal Srinivasan told Business Line on Monday that the decision was taken because the current thinking in the TVS family is that the members of the family would hold board positions only in the holding company and not in the operating companies. “It is good from a governance angle,” Mr Gopal Srinivasan said.

He noted that some members of the TVS family had to attend around 40 board meetings of TVS companies each year, apart from any meetings of non-TVS companies in which they might happen to be a director.

He said he had also resigned as a whole-time director from Sundaram-Clayton and TVS Electronics Ltd.

Shaeffler is the world’s biggest maker of ball-bearings and has reportedly offered €10 billion (£7.9 billion) for the takeover.

Continental has been valued at €10.9 billion (£8.6 billion) and the company’s share price has halved in recent weeks as rising costs of raw materials takes its toll on the tyre industry.

Seasoned tourer and probably one of the most famous users of the company’s products, Nick Sanders, is currently on his Parallel Worlds Tour on Continental tyres.

After a series of top-level exits and slide in sales, motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor has restructured its Indian operations as well as changed its marketing strategy.

The company has also decided to do away with giving discounts on motorcycles to push sales and has brought its auto-finance arm to India to finance purchase of its products.

India Yamaha Motor head for sales and marketing, Mr Pankaj Dubey, told that the company has restructured Indian operations as well as integrated various operations to create a focused approach towards increasing sales.

“There were problems earlier. But now everything is geared towards serving the customers,” he said. Right from manufacturing to assembly, the focus is on customers, he said.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha has brought its auto-finance arm, Bussan Auto finance, which will fully finance the customers in purchasing the company’s motor cycles.

“We will finance the purchases at extremely competitive rates,” he said. Some of the private sector banks in the country have toughened norms and increased interest rate for two wheelers purchase.

This has led to a major slide in sales of two wheelers in the country.

During 2007-08, two wheelers sales in the country declined nearly 8 per cent.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha expects to increase its share in the two-wheeler market to about 10 per cent by 2010 or 8 lakh units from the current level of about 2.6 per cent which is about 1.6 lakh units. Early this year, Yamaha had announced an investment of around Rs 800 crore in its Indian operations which includes plants in Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana.

It also entered into an agreement with Mitsui & Co. to become a joint investor in India Yamaha Motor Pvt Ltd.

Yamaha’s product portfolio in India includes MT01 (1670 cc), YZF-R1 (998 cc), YZF-R15 (150 cc), Gladiator SS & RS (125 cc), Gladiator Graffiti (125cc), G5 (106 cc), Alba (106 cc) and Crux (106 cc).

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India is set to close this year with sales of over one million two-wheelers, according to Mr S. Aoyama, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after the nation-wide launch of its latest 125-CC bike, Honda Stunner CBF 125, Mr Aoyama said the market in the country is witnessing an increasing number of buyers for the 125- and 150-cc models.

Last year, Honda India closed with sales of 9.07 lakhs, accounting for a market share of about 11 per cent, and is confident of closing this year with overall sales volumes of 1 million plus.

“We are looking at a market share of about 15 per cent in couple of years and have the potential to produce about 14 lakh vehicles in the existing plant,” he said.

Asked about the impact of higher interest rates and the country’s current economic conditions impacting the volumes in India, Mr Aoyama said, “These may be temporary concerns, we believe that the overall industry will grow this year.”

Source: Blonnet