India’s electric vehicle market just got a new player and revolution in the electric cycle is now being led by one of India’s biggest legacy companies – Hero Cycles. Hero Cycles is the market leader of cycles in India and now, the company has added to its portfolio – e-bikes.
In fact, Hero Motors Co., the parent of cycle maker Hero Cycles Ltd, is looking for acquisitions in the US and Germany to expand its e-bicycle business across developed economies. The company has been in the business since 1956 and it finally made the move to e-bikes and the CEO of Hero Cycles Rohit Gothi believes that e-bikes will grow faster than electric cars or scooters in India.
Hero has ambitious goals to have a significant share in the global cycles market. In India, the company had reported a 15% year-on-year growth for FY19, having sold 31 million units. In order to tap into the growing market for e-bicycles and premium bicycles across the globe, Hero Cycles will also focus on making high-end components for such bicycles through joint ventures with some foreign companies.’
Hero launched Lectro – its electric bikes – in a pilot phase last year, it has also come up with an upgraded version Lectro+. Gothi said that the response has been encouraging and they have also started commercially selling the e-bikes. The multi-speed geared variant of the e-bike has been launched at a price of ₹26,999 while the gearless one will come at ₹18,999.
Image source – livemint.com
“The best part about e-bikes is that from the cost of maintenance perspective they are fairly cheap, unlike other e-initiatives like car or scooter. They don’t need large scale charging infrastructure so we can really scale up soon,” said Gothi.
Hero Cycles has inaugurated Hero Industrial Park in Punjab in April to boost the cycle manufacturing industry. An emerging trend being tapped by the Hero Industrial park would be to capitalize on the potential of Electric Cycles.
As of now, the company is focused on setting up a cycle manufacturing base in Punjab known as the ‘Cycle Valley’ where manufacturing will start from October 2020. Hero Cycles had invested around ₹250-300 crore in the project.
“We have a sister company – Hexi – which is in the public bicycle sharing space. We have 4,000 cycles running on the road and campuses specifically Punjab Agriculture University. We have our hands on everything and anything that is related to micro mobility,” said Gothi.
E-Bicycle market is hot around the world today and has been gaining new Gen investors’ eyeballs. This is the best time for Hero Cycles to make the most out of the trends and sell their best stuff to the world like it has been doing for decades in India.
