TVS Motor Co’s electric scooter, which is seeing growing demand, also crosses the cumulative 50,000-unit milestone 35 months after launch.
08 Dec 2022 | 18005 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
Thirty-five months after it was launched, the TVS iQube, TVS Motor Co’s first electric vehicle and scooter, has recorded its best-ever monthly sales. In November, the iQube logged a total of 10,058 units, which beats the previous best of 8,103 units in festive October 2022 and points to growing demand ...
This is an Autocar Pro Plus article. Subscribe to continue reading.
Thirty-five months after it was launched, the TVS iQube, TVS Motor Co’s first electric vehicle and scooter, has recorded its best-ever monthly sales. In November, the iQube logged a total of 10,058 units, which beats the previous best of 8,103 units in festive October 2022 and points to growing demand for the eco-friendly scooter.
What’s more, with cumulative sales of 42,528 units in the first eight months of FY2023, total sales of the iQube, which was launched in January 2020, have crossed the 50,000-unit mark. At end-November 2022, the total iQube domestic market tally is 54,424 units (see sales data table below).
Given the rapid of pace of demand for electric scooters, which others in the industry are also benefitting from, TVS’ April-November 2022 sales of 42,528 sales are up 964% on a very low year-ago base of 3,994 units. That’s not all because the iQube’s sales in the first eight months in the ongoing fiscal are a 257% increase over the cumulative three-year sales of 11,896 units between FY2020 till FY2022.
Along with growing two-wheeler customer preference for EVs in the face of high petrol costs – currently Rs 106.29 a litre in Mumbai – the acceleration in demand for the TVS iQube seems to have come after the rollout of the refreshed iQube in May 2022. The zero-emission TVS is priced between Rs 98,564 and Rs 108,690 (on-road Delhi) including the FAME and other state subsidies, for the entry-level iQube and iQube S trims, respectively. In terms of network, the new iQube is available in 33 cities and is slated to reach another 52-odd cities within India.
TVS Motor has also introduced a top-spec iQube ST variant with a range of 140km on a single charge. This is nearly twice the range of 75km on the earlier model.
The refreshed iQube retains its all-LED lights and 12-inch wheels but gets a host of connectivity features, driven by the various TFT instrument clusters on offer. While the entry-level iQube gets a 5-inch unit that supports turn-by-turn navigation, the iQube S comes equipped with a larger 7-inch TFT cluster that offers music controls and theme personalisation as well. The ST variant, on the other hand, features a 7-inch touchscreen instrument cluster, which is also ready for OTA updates, as well as offers voice assistance.
In the overall Indian e-two-wheeler rankings though, TVS is some distance away from the top players like Ola Electric, Okinawa Autotech, Hero Electric, Ampere Vehicles and Ather Energy but is above its IC engine rival Bajaj Auto, which entered the EV market at the same time as it did. The other home-grown rival, Hero MotoCorp has also plugged into the EV story albeit only recently with the Vida brand.