We had a chat with Yogesh Mathur, Director, Sales and Marketing, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), at the launch of Honda’s new electric scooters. Here are the excerpts.
Interviewed by: Joshua Varghese
Your career at Honda has exceeded two decades. Could you tell us what inspired you to be at Honda for so long?
Our company is actually built on the power of dreams. If you have that passion to reach your goal, this is the right company to work with. Since 2001, when I joined this organisation, I have also been keeping in mind that I need to provide the products as well as the services to customers and that those should match the overall global philosophy of Honda. Our core philosophy is to make sure that we have three joys: the joy of buying, the joy of selling, and the great joy of creating.
What took Honda so long to get into the electric vehicle (EV) space?
Whenever we feel that it is an appropriate time for us to enter the market, then we bring in the product. This time we wanted to make sure that, based on the consumers’ learning, the products should also have all types of solutions that they require. We are the only company to have both types of models available; one has swappable batteries and the other is a fixed-battery type, so we have that edge. We are also trying to create an EV ecosystem completely to make sure that the anxiety of the consumers, especially about the range, the infrastructure, the safety or service, needs to be taken care of. We consolidated the entire thing and, with that package, only now we are entering [that space].
How would you differentiate between your target customer for the QC 1 and the Activa e:?
The Activa:e is for the customer who is actually looking at a product for which they need not wait for charging. As for the QC1, it is for the people who are always looking at a very affordable kind of a solution from us and they are the people whose daily commuting needs are taken care of in a single charge.
The Activa e: can only be charged by swapping batteries. There is no option to charge it via a cord. Why is that so?
Basically, we need to look at it in terms of the consumer who does not really want to have to worry about charging the battery. Why would they go back home and have a small set-up of charging once they can get the battery completely charged 100 per cent within a minute? They need not worry about the battery. They need to just worry about their own daily schedule.
Do you feel the Activa e: will pose a challenge to the sales of the Activa?
In India, our market is very vast and it is growing at almost 16 per cent YTD basis. Since this market is expanding, there are all types of customers available. There are people who are currently looking at something which is more towards the future. Those will definitely come to the Activa e:. We are not assuming that we can really stop people from buying ICE and then shift to electric. That’s not going to happen, so both will have a simultaneous coexistence.
What is HMSI’s challenge in bringing models like the CBR150R, X-ADV scooters or even the PCX range?
I would not say that there is any challenge for us, because those products are already available globally, but now the Indian market is actually at the cusp of transformation and we are the only country which is making such a fast transition from BS III to BS IV and then from BS IV to BS VI to OBD 2A and now OBD 2B within a very short span of time. We have to consider which model is appropriate for India. We need to think whether it has to be upgraded and whether it will make sense for us to enter it into business from the viability point of view. We are already working on certain models.
Is there anything that you would like to tell our readers?
What you have to understand about these two launches of the Activa e: and QC1 is that the most important aspect was the trust factor which customers currently have a challenge with. So, we wanted to make sure that we bring not just the product but even the services which we will be rendering. Our theme and our philosophy is to make sure that we develop our service network first and then go with sales. Once they buy our product, they have to be assured of the kind of trust, the kind of quality, and the kind of safety our products will be able to give them.
Also Read: Interview – Yadvinder Singh Guleria, Chief Commercial Officer, Royal Enfield
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