In an effort to expand its customer reach to achieve greater traction in India’s fast-growing electric two-wheeler market, the Haryana-based Revolt Motors has opened 15 new dealerships.
The 15 new dealerships are located at Raipur, Vapi, Bahadurgarh, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Bhubaneswar, Kota, Agra, Jhansi, Meerut, Surat, Dehradun, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. The new dealerships have begun taking bookings for the RV400 electric motorcycle. This takes Revolt Motors’ all-India dealer network to 50 outlets.
Over the past year, Revolt Motors had expanded its all-India retail footprint to 35 dealership stores. On February 24, 2023, new showrooms were inaugurated in Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Guwahati (Assam) and Hubballi (Karnataka).
Revolt Motors, which began commercial operations in August 2019 with two electric motorcycles: the RV300 and RV400, has its manufacturing facility in the automobile manufacturing hub of Manesar, Haryana. The company has, between April 2022 and mid-March 2023, sold a total of 12,660 EV400s as per Vahan data.
The company’s flagship bike, the RV400, has a 3kW (mid-drive) motor powered by a 72V, 3.24kWh lithium-ion battery that develops a top speed of 85kph. The RV400 features three riding modes – Eco, Normal and Sport.
As is known, in October 2022, Rattan India Enterprises, the flagship company of the Rattan India Group which is engaged in tech-focussed, new-age businesses including e-commerce, EVs, fintech and drones, acquired 100% shareholding in Revolt Motors.
Aggressive expansion plan, production ramp up
The company now has outlined an ambitious and aggressive network expansion plan, which targets setting up of 150 showrooms over the next three months or end-June 2023. This means adding 100 new outlets between April and June this year.
According to Anjali Rattan Nashier, business chairman, Rattan India Enterprises, “We are multiplying the pan-India dealership network at a very fast pace. We will be opening over 150 dealerships pan India in the next three months. Apart from sales it will also give a boost to our post-sales experience with service centres in these locations. We have significantly ramped up the production at our plants and customers can now get immediate deliveries of their Revolt motorcycles.”
Earlier this month, Revolt Motors appointed Pankaj Sharma, an Indian auto industry veteran with extensive experience across the strategy, sales, marketing, servicing, customer experience, dealer development and digital transformation domains as its chief business officer.
Growing competition in e-motorcycle market
Revolt Motors is one of the very few electric motorcycle makers in India, which mostly has electric scooter OEMs populating the e-two-wheeler market. The Revolt RV400, which is priced at Rs 139,000 (on-road Delhi) and Rs 182,000 for the Premium variant, is India’s first AI-enabled, LTE-connected electric motorcycle that comes with a 4G SIM. It has an ARAI-certified range of 156km, while the top speed is limited to 85kph. Recent rivals in the e-motorcycle market include the Ultraviolette F77, which was launched in November 2022 albeit at a far higher Rs 380,000. There is also the Kratos from Tork Motors, the Emflux One from Emflux Motors and the Etryst 350 from Pure EV. In early March 2023, Hero MotoCorp signed a pact with Zero Motocycles of the USA to co-develop premium electric motorcycles.
India, which is the largest motorised two-wheeler market in the world with motorcycles leading the way with an over 60% market share, sold over 600,000 electric two-wheelers (up 305%) in CY2022. Like all EVs, electric motorcycles offer a huge cost advantage compared to petrol-engined bikes with their running cost being an estimated one-tenth of a petrol bike. With its aggressive retail network expansion plan and ramped-up production, Revolt Motors is looking to increase its market share.