E-Scooters in Ahmedabad, India

Luke Jones (PhD Student in Economics) and I are in Ahmedabad, India, estimating market potential of e-scooters among the millions of gas scooters and motorbikes in this city of about 4 million. This is a very similar study to the one we did last summer in Vietnam. We’ve been working with Professor Talat Munshi from the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology University. The overall goal of the study is to help improve the air quality (which is vastly needed) and reduced GHG and energy use in the transport sector. With the millions of electric bikes and scooters in China, the question remains, why haven’t e-scooters been adopted on a wide scale in nations like India and Vietnam. Indeed, a very large number of gasoline motorbikes are in the 100cc class, low-power enough to be easily replaced by a electric scooter. I’ve been here a week and Luke a little longer, working on a stated preference experiment to estimate potential market penetration under a number of scenarios, including performance, price, and regulatory improvements. Some of the initial impressions are that e-scooters seem to suffer a perception problem, with many people either having bad experiences or knowing someone who has. The e-scooter population is incredibly low; we’ve spotted about half a dozen over the time here. One of the most interesting activities is visiting Mr. Bhandari, chairman of Yo-Bikes, to discuss with him some of the challenges he faces creating a marketable E-Scooter. In fact, he has created an e-scooter, the Yo-EXL that has a high speed around 55 km/hr and has plenty of pickup. I was able to test drive this at their factory and it is truly unlike any e-bike I’ve ridden previously. Mr. Bhandari states that the real challenge is providing affordable batteries since people seem to be so price sensitive on purchase price. This is confirmed with some of our walk-alongs with the surveyors. Despite our careful attention to many attributes, they mostly chose based on price. Mr. Bhandari stated that the real thing that he needs is some support from the government to help subsidize e-scooters, until the market matures and the industry can become self-sustaining. I tend to agree, even as China’s growth was with the help of powerful government lobby groups and support. We hope to have a draft report done by the end of the month.

Ahmedabad has been quite interesting, certainly different than any place I’ve ever been. The air pollution is oppressive, along with the heat. It has taken a few days to get used to the incessant honking, but I’ve finally grown accustomed (even after my warmup in China). The food and people are great however.