By HMSI has announced their electric scooter roadmap and future business direction in India. The Japanese 2-wheeler manufacturer intends to build a dedicated EV factory, platform, and workshop in India.
Their goal is to develop a healthy and sustainable electric vehicle market in India. The company announced its Future Business Direction for the upcoming fiscal year. It includes plans to expand its overseas business and production capacity.
Honda plans to use Factory ‘E’ as a dedicated electric vehicle manufacturing facility. This specialised manufacturing unit will be at Honda’s Narsapura Plant in Karnataka. The sole focus of this Factory E will be the production of electric vehicles.
Honda claims that their EVs will use components that are made in India. These components can range from batteries to power control units. The motor will be designed and manufactured in-house by the Japanese automaker.
The factory will use 80% sustainable materials and will use close to 100% renewable energy. The facility will ramp up to produce 10 lakh EV units by 2030.
Platform ‘E’ will act as a dedicated electric vehicle platform. Platform ‘E’ will serve as the foundation for a wide range of EV models. It includes fixed-battery, swappable-battery, and mid-range EVs.
In Fiscal Year 2024, HMSI will introduce two new two-wheeler EVs. The first will be a mid-range Electric Vehicle. The second will be a battery type with swappable batteries that will use the Honda Mobile Power Pack e.
Honda has planned Workshop ‘E’ to act as a dedicated EV workshop as well. Charging stations will be installed at the existing 6000+ HMSI network touchpoints. Honda plans to transform some of these touchpoints into Workshop ‘E’. This setup will house HEID battery exchangers. It will also have mini battery exchangers for swappable batteries and charging cables for fixed batteries.
HMSI has included the existing framework as a leverage point in its plans. It includes battery swapping stations at petrol stations, metro stations, etc.