Honda Electric Scooter Launch Timeline & Battery Details Revealed

Apart from this, Honda will also launch a 100cc commuter bike that’ll carry a mouth-watering price tag

Honda is all set to launch its first electric scooter in India by March 2024. This was revealed by Atsushi Ogata, CEO and MD of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, at the launch of the Activa H-Smart. Revealing more details about the marque’s first EV for India, he said the e-scooter will have a fixed battery and a top speed of about 50kmph. It’ll, hence, likely be a moped, like we reported last year. 

The second model, meanwhile, will get two swappable batteries, possibly sold as a B2C, as well as a B2B product. The latter could be the Benly e as the scooter has been spotted in India multiple times. Honda has, in fact, already commenced its pilot programme for testing its battery-swapping tech on two- and three-wheelers in Bengaluru. 

Not only has the company set up a dedicated subsidiary in India but also partnered with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited to set up battery-swapping stations across the country. You can check out more of Honda’s future electrification plans here. 

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With these initiatives, the company is looking to ensure the ecosystem is right before launching its first EV in India. Though Honda has a swappable battery system in place, it’s likely that it has opted for a fixed battery pack to ensure the e-scooter is affordable. Moreover, its limited top speed of 50kmph also points at this possibility. 

All in all, it appears that Honda is looking to grab the market share of the Okinawa and Hero Electric scooters rather than high-end, more expensive e-scooters like the Bajaj Chetak, TVS iQube Electric, Hero Vida V1 and Ola S1.

The Japanese marque will also be entering the commuter space by launching a 100cc bike (reportedly by March), something that it first talked about in 2022, before confirming it again later in the same year. 

Ogata went as far as to say that the bike’s price will “positively shock” customers. Given that almost all of Honda’s recent launches have been shocking us… in a negative way, we hope this one indeed shocks us positively.

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