At this point, it’s pretty much a given that electric vehicles are the future of mobility. Nearly all manufacturers of cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles have been investing heavily in the electrification of their platforms, while some have already mass-marketed some of their electric-driven vehicles across the globe. Needless to say, technology is advancing at a lighting fast pace, and EVs just continue to make more and more sense.
If you take the potential electric mobility has in the grand scheme of things and apply it to the urban setting, you get a solution that pretty much ticks all the boxes. As such, there’s no surprise that city streets across parts of Europe and Asia are becoming quieter and cleaner thanks to the influx of electric bicycles, scooters, and cars. Sure, gas-powered vehicles are here to stay, but a lot of people have either switched to electric, or complemented their existing fleet of vehicles with one or two LEVs (lightweight electric vehicles).
Be that as it may, major manufacturers in the motoring industry have rolled out plans for specific markets surrounding mainstream adoption of EVs, with Honda certainly being no exception. In the Indian market alone, HMSI, or Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, has already identified three EV categories in which it wants to operate.
In an exclusive report published by Indian automotive publication Car and Bike, Atsushi Ogata, president and managing director of HMSI highlighted that the company has plans of rolling out vehicles under the EB (electric bike), EM (electric moped), and EV (electric vehicle) categories, with the names pretty much self-explanatory. More specifically, Honda sees the greatest potential in the electric moped sector, which when translated to ICE speak is tantamount to the 100cc to 125cc range of commuter scooters. In fact, Car and Bike’s report states that Honda plans to launch an electric moped in the Indian market as early as April, 2023.
We previously reported that Honda had big plans for the Indian market when it came to EVs. Well, now it look like these plans are coming into fruition. Needless to say, should Honda release an electric moped at an affordable price and with impressive specs, vehicles like the massively popular Ola S1 and Ather 450X will certainly have some stiff competition. That said, Honda also has a high-speed electric motorcycle in the pipeline, which it hopes to launch following its upcoming electric moped. Similarly, in China, Honda previously launched the U-GO electric scooter, maybe the India-specific model will have a thing or two in common with it.
