Chennai: Ampere founder Hemalatha Annamalai, may exit e-vehicle maker in a year depending on how things pan out.
“After the end of next year, both Greaves Cotton and I have an option and if it makes sense we will exercise it so Greaves Cotton can own 100% of Ampere,” she said.
Currently she owns around 19% of Ampere after Greaves Cotton increased its shareholding two weeks ago from 67.34% to 81.23% by investing an additional 38.49 crore. Last year, Greaves picked up just over 67% stake in Ampere for Rs 77 crore,” said Annamalai.
“Ampere, which started out offering affordable electric scooters for rural and semi urban areas, is also branching out into pricier and higher-speed scooters for urban areas with its new launch Zeal. Ampere will still focus 70% of its products for rural and semi urban mobility but we will also make high speed lithium-ion scooters like Zeal for urban consumers,” she further added.
It leads the electric two wheeler market in Tamil Nadu with 80-85 dealers and the company is scaling up the network. “We will continue to make low speed scooters for affordable mobility because Tamil Nadu is a largely semi urban market for this segment but we will also make higher end high-speed products like Zeal for urban consumers,” said Annamalai.
Ampere reduced prices by Rs 2000 to Rs 6000 following the government decision to cut GST on e-vehicles.
The electric vehicle market, which according to Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) sold 66000 vehicle slast year, is slated to hit 200,000 units this year. The company has a peak capacity of 60,000 units a year.
“Right now we are not producing at peak capacity but with the GST cut if demand goes up we will expand and go in for a second plant,’’ said Annamalai.