Greaves Cotton bets on EVs, non-auto engines; aims to provide affordable mobility

Greaves Cotton reported earnings for the June-ended quarter. The quarter was hit by an eight-week long shutdown of the Coimbatore plant which led to losses. Electric two-wheeler volumes were down over 20 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

The company has been making a bit of a transition and betting big on electric vehicles. Nagesh Basavanhalli, MD and Group CEO of the company, said, “Our Coimbatore plant was down for eight weeks due to the corona pandemic. The supply chains also got affected. Therefore, in Q1, shared mobility concerns and planned shutdowns were things beyond our control.”

On transition, he said, “Four years ago, we started our transition to being a B2C, getting closer to the customer and embracing electric and now electric is 12 percent of our portfolio as of last quarter, and 30 percent of our revenue is coming in from new businesses started in the last few years.”

“The company is in transition and is betting strong. We were one of the early movers, we did not come in after the fad on electric started. We were one of the earliest movers into electric almost four years ago. So, in terms of last mile mobility, which now has presence in both B2B and B2C, in two wheelers and now three wheelers as well with our latest strategic stake into MLR and the new Ampere brand. In addition to that, multibrand sales and service - 400 towns, 1,00,000 EVs that we have sold so far, tells you where the future is headed,” Basavanhalli told CNBC-TV18.

“With regard to non-auto engine business, it is now one-third of the total engine volume at a time when shared mobility concerns pulled down our core automobile engines volume, that tells you that the company is betting strong on non-auto engines backed on construction, marine defence, as well as electric mobility,” he added.

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When asked about competition in the electric two-wheeler business, he said, “Let me focus on what we do, right. When we look at the last mile mobility players where people move either passengers or cargo, either in two-wheeler or three-wheeler, which makes up 80 percent of India's fleet in the last mile, we are there. Secondly, we are in the affordable mobility category.”

“Our aim in life is to give uninterrupted journey by giving affordable mobility, which means we are in Rs 30,000 to about Rs 90,000 range and that has been our stated goal from day one and we have not deviated. Moreover, we are in the heart of the market and 40 percent of our customers are our first-time consumers coming into the two-wheeler industry and we have 100,000 customers,” he said.

Also Read: India's EV race: Who is winning and who is lagging in the two-wheeler segment?

When asked about the company’s goals, he said, “We have a strategy. We were early adopters into this. We saw this coming and we have a plan which is not just in two-wheelers, but also three wheelers, and e-rickshaws - it contributes significant livelihoods in India, it's a significant market at the bottom of the pyramid. So when I look at it, we inverted the bottom of the pyramid. There is a lot of fortune when you look at opportunities to give people affordable mobility and uninterrupted journey, that's what our aim in life is.”