Okinawa Beats Ola To Become India’s #1 Electric Scooter Brand; But Overall Sales Drop By 30%

Things are going south for electric scooter companies as registrations for electric bikes have declined by more than 24% in May. 

Comparatively, February and March have been great for the registrations of electric scooters. 

Demand For Electric Bikes Takes A Hit

Eight companies that manufacture electric bikes have registered 32,680 vehicles by the evening of May 31st compared to 43,098 vehicles registered in April, as per the VAHAN data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

Automobile analysts have stated that this decline can be attributed to the initial demand that was accumulated for such automobiles in the market. They have also expressed confidence that the numbers will be even more realistic in the upcoming days. 

Additionally, Hero Electric has continued to lose ground, and Ola Electric has lost its top spot to Okinawa, which it won in April. Ola Electric had 8704 registrations in May, down 31% from the previous month. On the other hand, Okinawa recorded 8894 automobiles, a 19 percent decrease from April.

Analysts had estimated that by the end of the year, there will be around 0.7-0.8 million electric scooters on the road. The current patterns do not appear to be any closer to those seen in February and March. 

While February witnessed a 15% increase in registrations over January, March showed an astounding 58 percent increase over February. Whereas, current figures show that pent-up demand will soon be met, and estimates for the coming months will stabilize the situation.

Electric Two Wheelers Of Ola, Okinawa Catching Fire

As we all know, the owners of electrically powered two-wheelers are not happy with their experiences, what with the bikes catching fire. In recent weeks, scooters from Ola Electric, Pure EV, Okinawa Scooters, and Jitendra Electric Vehicles have been caught on fire. 

An Ola S1 pro electric scooter was on fire in Lohegaon, Pune.

At the beginning of April, a dealership in Balaghat near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh belonging to Ghaziabad based e-Ashwa Automotive caught fire. The dealership sells a range of electric scooters and rickshaws.

40 electric scooters from Jitendra Electric Vehicles caught fire on April 11 after being loaded in a transport container in Nashik.

On March 28, the government pulled up an expert team to investigate the incidents. 

On April 7, it summoned the technical teams of Ola Electric and Okinawa Scooter for an explanation. It was then that Ola Electric Founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that the company may recall a few batches of electric scooters depending on the recommendations from probing agencies.