Prices of TVS Apache, Ronin, iQube to remain elevated

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Price of TVS Motor two wheelers like TVS Apache, Ronin or even electric scooter TVS iQube Electric may remain high in the near future. The home grown auto manufacturer had taken a fresh round of price hike on both ICE and E2Ws in the current quarter by an average of 0.5% across models. But, the company doesn’t see any price revision coming in near future.

TVS Motor, MD and CEO, K N Radhakrishnan said, TVS Motor doesn’t plan to cut prices to make e-scooters cheaper. It will rather focus on upper strata of economy and plans to launch premium products.

Although , Radhakrishnan said raw material prices have started to cool-off but the domestic two wheeler company has no plans to pass on the benefit of price cut to customers in the near future.

On impact of FAME-II subsidy cut on E2Ws, Radhakrishnan said, the electric two wheeler sale in entire industry was hit by the FAME-II subsidy cut in June 2023. But, he could see small pick up in sales s0 far in July. He is hopeful July, 2023 E2W sales figure would be much better than that in June, 2023.

When, government reduced subsidy on E2Ws, overall sale in the entire industry plunged more than half to 45,960 in June, 2023 from 1.05 lakh units in June, 2022. But, according to TVS Motor, EV industry will overcome hiccup of FAME-II subsidy cut and resultant price hike. The company expects E2W sale in India to regain figures of pre FAME-II subsidy cut period by Q4 FY24.

TVS Motor had to increase prices of iQube after the central government reduced subsidy under FAME-II scheme. Earlier, customers used to get up to 51,000 rupees subsidy on purchase of electric scooters of TVS Motor before June 1, 2023. But after FAME-II subsidy cut, TVS Motor has only been able to give up to 22,000 rupees subsidy on the E2W to customers. Currently, TVS iQube Electric has an on-road price of Rs 1.23 lakh in Delhi. Earlier, it was less than Rs 1 lakh.

According to Radhakrishnan, TVS Motor plans to add new features to its E2Ws to offset for the price increase. Radhakrishnan said, “ Ownership cost of E2Ws may come down in very long term. But not in near term. EV pbattery cost will gradually come down. But no price cut decision taken based on this factor.”

As a goodwill measure, those who had booked TVS iQube e-scooters at old price (low price) before June 1, 2023. But then, the government had reduced subsidy and iQube’s prices got increased. There were 30,000 such customers. TVS Motor will give Rs 1,700 to each of these customers as a part of goodwill measure.