The highlight for Bajaj Auto‘s Q2 performance has no doubt been the sales of Chetak- its electric scooter and Freedom- the CNG bike. Chetak e-scooter sales have tripled in 12 months and clocked around 18,933 units in September. Even the CNG-bike Freedom saw a brisk sales momentum with Bajaj Auto selling over 6000 units since its launch in July. Does that mean that Bajaj is planning to introduce an electric motorcycle soon? Well, the two-wheeler major doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Though concept work is underway, there isn’t any date in consideration yet.
Responding to a question, by Financial Express.com, on the company’s plans on launching an electric bike, Dinesh Thapar – CFO, Bajaj Auto ruled out any, “in the immediate future. I think much of the emphasis at this point of time is to really continue to build portfolio competitiveness on the electric scooter space and, of course, on the electric three-wheeler space. So clearly widening of those portfolios. But there is conception work, which is happening on electric motorcycles, but I think that that will see light of day clearly much later on, nothing definitive at this point.”
The higher share of EVs in the current sales and quarterly performance isn’t something unique to Bajaj Auto. Many of the other traditional ICE two-wheeler biggies like Hero MotoCorp and TVS Motors have also seen similar trends.
Speaking on the way the conventional players are catching up with the EV start-ups in the two-wheeler space, Thapar highlighted that, “if you look at just how the market has evolved in the past few years, nearly 80% of the market is held by the top four players. Two of the big legacy players that traditionally manufactured only ICE two-wheelers have come back in a big way and really garnered market share. It is, of course, our intention to continue to grow the share in the quarters ahead. As for CNG, I think it is very unique to us. We had a very sizable play on CNG in the three-wheeler space as well. We’ve led the way on CNG. And with the launch of Freedom, we are uniquely positioned as the only two-wheeler player to offer this alternative fuel.”
Thapar made it amply clear that Bajaj Auto is not veering away from the Green goals. The company divided its Green portfolio into two parts- Electric and CNG. The electric one currently comprises scooters and three-wheelers while in the CNG segment, Bajaj Auto enjoys a sort of unique position, being the only player offering CNG motorcycles.
“Green Energy Now contributes over 40% of domestic revenues. It is clearly a strategic priority for us to continue to grow this even further coming across businesses. Supported by these, our exports revenue grew in double digits, and we’re quite heartened by that.”
Speaking specifically about the growth trajectory for Freedom, its CNG motorcycle, Thapar highlighted that the target is to achieve 40,000 units by end of FY25, “the network’s been expanded to over 350 cities. We’re focused on really expanding capacities for it. So, the 20,000 units that we did in September, we’re looking to bridge capacity at about 30,000 units in the course of this current quarter (Q3FY25) and then try and inch that up to about 40,000 units of capacity by quarter four. So that’s the trajectory of Freedom.”
