Hero MotoCorp has revealed that it will enter the electric two-wheeler market in 2022
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Hero’s offering will use a fixed charging system
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The Gogoro product will use a swap-based system
During a recent conference call, Niranjan Gupta, CFO, Hero MotoCorp said that Hero is on track to enter the electric two-wheeler segment in the next calendar year. He said that the company would have its own product, which has been developed at its R&D centres in Germany and Jaipur, ready alongside its project with Gogoro.
He went on to say that Hero’s own product is primarily based on a fixed charging system, similar to most other electric two-wheelers on sale in India. However, the project it has coming along in partnership with Gogoro will be based on a battery swapping system.
Despite being opposite approaches, Hero is expecting both systems to work parallelly. Gupta also added that this would allow Hero to “play in both the spaces”. He also said, “Gogoro has got ready and proven technology. They know how it works and there is a lot of learning that has gone into it in Taiwan, so that helps us in taking off the ground very quickly.”
While he didn’t reveal a specific timeline, he did say products from the Hero MotoCrop and Gogoro partnership will arrive in 2022. Hero hasn’t revealed much about its upcoming electric scooter, but it’s ‘Proto 01’ prototype from last year, suggests that it could be based on the Maestro Edge. Gogoro also hasn’t revealed much, but it did trademark ‘Gogoro Viva’ in India in 2019.
Vishal Venugopal
Ved Janve
Azaman Chothia
