Drive home a fuel saving e-bike

New Delhi: With fuel prices racing ahead, the Government and consumers are looking at switching over to alternative fuels.

In fact, the Government is planning to cut the excise duty to 8 per cent for small cars running on fuels like CNG and LPG.

Companies like Maruti, Hyundai, General Motors and Ford have already launched hybrid versions of their vehicles in India.

The Government says it is ready to dole out more sops to incentivise automakers and customers.

Adds Vice President of Tata Motors, Ravi Kant, "We are running almost 40 buses in Pune, with 10 per cent jatropha oil and diesel for the last one year. And many more projects like this are underway."

While hybrids have hit indian roads the concept of electric vehicles is yet to catch on. According to a study done by A C Nielsen, the market potential for electric vehicles in all five lakh plus towns is above nine lakh units.

This seems to have excited global players like Electrotherm, ACE and UK-based Ultra Motor.

In fact Ultra Motor is tying up with a two wheeler company in India and will launch its range of e-bikes and e-scooters by the year end.

But issues like battery charging stations and supply could prove to be speedbreakers.

Says DG, SIAM, Dilip Chenoy, "We can't get it on to the road because there are issues relating to recharging of batteries. According to regulations, petrol pumps cannot serve as recharging stations."

Adds Director, Marketing Ultra Motor India, Deba Ghoshal, "We want to start with basic e-bikes and scale up the whole offering by March next year, when we want to offer people electric scooters."

So you can buy an e-bike or an e-scooter by shelling out anything between Rs 13,000 and Rs 30,000, but don't expect to burn up the streets as these vehicles will have an average speed of 35 kmph and will be less than 250 watts.

However, that is just the beginning and more souped up versions are in the pipeline.