The country's leading two-wheeler EV maker Hero Electric had zero dispatches to dealers for the entirety of April. Do the raging fire incidents involving two-wheelers have got anything to do with it?
Well, certainly not. Hero Electric was impacted by another crisis, one that is impacting the entire world. The global semiconductor shortage apparently led to stoppage of production in the company.
"The company experienced extreme chip shortage and supply chain constraints," Hero Electric said in a statement. Ergo, it made zero dispatches in April 2022, it said and added that it was working on alternate sources and hoping to soon resume production.
But the disruption has further increased the waiting list for its customers to 60 plus days and some of the dealerships have no stock to display, the company claimed.
'Fire incidents, an awakening call to EV industry'
Hero Electric CEO, Sohinder Gill said "our sales were almost doubling month-on-month and we somehow managed with sourcing from different geographies but the war (Ukraine) collapsed a major supply chain resulting in this disruption."
“Meanwhile, we are using this time to enhance our plant capacity to increase our production volumes as well as revisit our systems and processes related to batteries to further reinforce the quality assurance of our bikes,” he added.
Gill described the recent incidents of electric scooters catching fire as an awakening call for the industry. Even the best of the companies should introspect and constantly improve their designs and quality to repose confidence in the electric mobility that is going through such a robust growth path, Gill said.
Govt scotches media reports
pic.twitter.com/kyN4KGaMoIApril 28, 2022
Elsewhere, the recent EV fires seems to have triggered another fire --- the one of fake news. Some media reports had it that the government has called for a halt on new two-wheeler launches till the fire accidents are investigated upon.
But as it happens, the government has not laid down any such curbs. Taking to Twitter, the Ministry of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said: "A section of media has reported that MoRTH (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) has asked electric two-wheeler manufacturers not to launch new vehicles till instances of fire are investigated. The Ministry wishes to clarify that there is no such instruction and such reports are unfounded, misleading and far from the truth."
The government has merely asked the EV makers to recall EVs from the batch of scooters that were involved in the accidents. Over the past week, EV makers such as Ola, Okinawa, and Pure EV have recalled over 6000 units of their vehicles.
