About a year back, we looked at where Honda was in its electrification journey. The world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer, with an estimated 35% share of the global two-wheeler market, had just started taking baby steps when it came to electrification.
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Was Honda deliberately slow? Was the company’s strategy so grand that it would take years to roll out? Was it even a believer?
So many questions…
Or was it simply the market leader’s inertia that had turned it into a deer caught in the headlights?
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Since then, Honda has been active and has launched two electric scooters each in its most important markets. In India, Honda has introduced the Activa e: and the QC1. In Indonesia, the company has the CUV e: and Icon E: scooters. Ditto, Vietnam. Meanwhile, the European markets get only the CUV e: for now.
But is that enough in a market like India?
The Indian market is the most important one for Honda. It is the biggest market for the Japanese manufacturer – in FY 2025 (Apr 2024 – Mar 2025), Honda sold nearly 5.33 million two-wheelers in the Indian market. Nearly half of them have been the Activa 110cc/125cc commuter scooter.
The Activa was first launched in May 1999 in India with a 100cc engine and has since then gone through multiple variations, styling updates, and engine upgrades, even though the core offering remains the same.
Throughout most of its market presence, the Activa has been the scooter market leader by a huge margin. Its market dominance has been unchallenged, even though other manufacturers like Suzuki and TVS also have very popular scooters.
Till now, that is.
Since FY 2021, Honda’s hold on the market has declined from 51.47% to 39.43% in FY 2025. It is still a very strong hold, but not the iron fist that it used to be.
In the same time frame, the competition saw its market share come down from 47.54% to 44.6% over the five years. Arguably, the competition has been less impacted by the growth of the electric scooter market than Honda has been. Or, the competition has taken share away from Honda with new, better-looking scooters like the TVS Jupiter 110/125.
It also does not help that both TVS, Bajaj, and Hero have some presence in the electric scooter market. Honda did not have till now, and that hurts the brand’s market share even more.
Honda’s Lineup in India
Honda entered the Indian electric scooter market in November 2024, though deliveries only started in February of the next year.
Being the market leader gives you a certain confidence that you know the customer better than anyone else. A few weeks back, we looked at the Indian scooter market and said that there are three bands – the Top (premium), the Mid (mass market), and the Bottom (utility).
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A new entrant is expected to target one of these precisely and squarely.
Honda doesn’t.
Honda Straddles Segments
The QC1 is an entry-level scooter. It comes with a 1.8kW hub motor and a 1.5 kWh fixed LFP pack. With a 330W charger, it needs an overnight charge. It is targeted at the utility customer but comes with limitations and differentiations.
It is not as ogrish as the typical Chinese-origin utility scooters in the Indian market. It is also not as cheap. At INR 90k (USD 1,050), it matches the Activa ICE on price.
In a way, the QC1 straddles the bottom and the mid-segments and is the real electric heir to the Activa, everything that the namesake is not.
For the price point, the Activa e: is a premium scooter. However, it does not quite have the chutzpah of an Ather 450X or an Ola S1 Pro. The base model is priced at more than INR 117k (USD 1350) but has none of the connectivity features that the Ather and the Ola are known for. There is a model with the RoadSync Duo, Honda’s connectivity suite, but that retails at more than INR 152k (USD 1767).
On top of these prices, the Activa e: does not come with battery ownership, and one has to subscribe to use the swapping network. Subscription prices range from INR 678 at the basic level to INR 3,599 at the heavy user level. That adds more to the price. Arguably, the customer would be spending money on charging at home were it not for swapping, but those charges would realistically be an estimated 16% of what Honda is charging for swapping.
Swapping has its positives, and we touched heavily on the subject in January this year.
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However, swapping’s biggest limitation is the effective geofencing it puts on the user.
Honda should have known – its Activa (ICE) has been taken by users for 1,000 km trips. That’s an outlier usage, not the most common case, but Indians hate to be geo-fenced. The Activa e: preposition is too strait-jacketed for the Indian market, where the first commuter scooter/motorcycle, especially the Activa, means an all-around, unbarred usage.
The result is that the Activa e: has met with a lukewarm response.
Make that cold.
As the data below indicates, Honda dispatched 698 Activa e: in February, March, and April. This is normal in a market like India, where the first couple of months are used to build inventory at the dealerships. For the 170-odd dealers that Honda has in Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai combined, 698 scooters come to about four scooters per dealership.
Since then, Honda has not dispatched any more Activa e:, which means that none of the dealers have sold beyond their initial stock.
Meanwhile, the QC1 has no such problems, even though it is also not successful by any means. QC1 dispatches to date are much higher than the Activa e: with more than 3,400 scooters dispatched between March and May.
On the retail sales/registration level, Honda’s numbers are improving gradually, but its swapping network has to expand fast.
Battery Swapping: The Chicken and Egg Situation
In a market like India, battery swapping is complex. It’s a large geography where every second city is a major two-wheeler market. For context, Honda’s current swapping network in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi reaches only 5% of the country’s population. Even in these cities, the network has the density of a ‘pilot project’ and nowhere close to the density Gogoro has in Taiwan.
Add to that, if the Activa e: sales remain slow, Honda would have little encouragement to expand its swapping footprint fast. Worse, it may bring into question the whole Mobile Power Pack (MPP) based strategy.
For now, Honda needs more vehicles to start using the MPP.
It is worth noting that Honda tested the Benly e: cargo scooter in India for a few years.
Why the Shine EV is needed
India is a motorcycle country. Motorcycles outsell scooters 2:1 in India. The Shine 100 is Honda’s most popular 100cc commuter motorcycle, selling more than 250,000 units in the last financial year.
That does not make it a roaring success. In comparison, the Hero Splendor sold more than 3.26 million units. However, Honda used to do even worse in the 100cc commuter segment, and the Shine 100 has been somewhat of a silver lining.
But Honda can certainly do with more numbers, both for the Shine and for the MPP platform.
We discussed the above patent in last week’s Weekender.
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To be fair, the patent was filed in November 2023, and Honda has not announced any intentions to productionise things. The company files a gazillion patents, some of them as interesting as “charging scooters through footpeg connectors.”
In fact, the patent is for the cooling of electronics. The gap between the two packs creates an airflow channel obstructed only by the front downtube. The electronics are placed behind the packs and towards the centre so they get the maximum cooling.
The importance of the patent is that it uses the Shine 100, a primarily India-market-only product. Then it uses the MPPs, being unrolled in India now. Then it has the potential to help Honda with numbers and MPP usage.
