Greetings and welcome back to the InsightEV Weekender. Here, I like to focus on things we did not cover during the week.
We Love the Lime Glider
Runabouts like the Lime Glider are the reason we love electric mobility. It allows companies to define new vehicle formats that are simpler to construct and are tailored for very specific jobs.
Electric mobility also gives the designers the freedom to make the vehicles look good and be utilitarian at the same time. It also means that a vehicle with a 32 kph top speed does not need to be engineered at the same level as one with a 100 kph top speed.
Take the Lime Glider above. Technically, it is a moped/scooter as it has no pedals. At the same time, it has a bicycle-derived frame, 20″ bicycle wheels, 2.5″ bicycle tires, and no suspension. It also has a ‘bell’, not a horn, which pumps up the cuteness coefficient. Lime says it is built on the same platform as the Lime Bike, a pedelec. This one replaces the pedals with footpegs.
It’s a solo rider machine; the long seat is just for accommodating riders of all heights.
No specs are disclosed, but we anticipate a 20 mph (32 kph) top speed since this gets shared-fleet deployed in the US. That, and the complete absence of turn indicators, mean that this is a neighbourhood runabout that Lime will deploy in its fleet. Denver, Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, and Zurich are the cities where Lime plans to deploy this.
India-May 2025 Numbers: TVS Consolidates Lead
The pecking order of sales volume in May remained the same as that in April 2025. However, while the last month was a photo finish, May saw TVS consolidating its lead to emerge as a strong leader in the E2W segment. TVS sold 24562 units for a 24.49% share of the market.
TVS was followed by Bajaj with 21,770 units sold, for a 21.71% market share.
Ola Electric was a distant third with 18,499 units sold. Ather managed to register 12,841 units, Hero Vida selling 7,165 units, and the remaining 190+ brands accounted for 15433 units in sales.
Overall, the Indian E2W market volume was 100,270 units, an 8.5% improvement from the previous month’s volumes of 92,393 units.
Bajaj Gets KTM Control
India-based Bajaj Auto, the world’s most profitable two-wheeler manufacturer and KTM’s long-term partner, has pitched in with EUR 800m to save KTM and acquire Pierer Industrie’s stake.
Last week, KTM announced that it had secured funding from long-time partner and very significant minority shareholder, Bajaj Auto. The funding of EUR 800m means that PIERER Mobility AG and KTM AG would be able to serve the quotas in the KTM restructuring proceedings, and the restructuring plan quotas of KTM AG, KTM Components GmbH, and KTM Forschungs & Entwicklungs GmbH will be fulfilled in time.
We look at the what, why, and what now of the deal.
Bajaj Will Ride KTM
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Ola Electric Bleeds Profusely
The India-based Ola Electric, the world’s most funded electric two-wheeler manufacturer, announced its Q4 and Full Year FY 2025 financial results yesterday. Every meaningful metric has dipped, the most important being a 61% drop in revenues and a -101% consolidated EBITDA margin.
The most worrying metric is unit sales.
…and EBITDA margins, which deteriorate every quarter.
An even more worrying picture is the collapse in financials since the IPO. Before the IPO, the investors had visibility into the Q1 FY 2025 results. That turned out to be Ola Electric’s best financial results to date. As a comparison, since Q1 FY 2025, Ola Electric’s EBITDA LOSSES have gone up 11.92X even as its scale has shrunk by 61.4%.
More in our story here
Ola Electric Bleeds Profusely – InsightEV
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Cooltra is on a roll
Last week, Europe-based ridesharing operator, Cooltra, announced a 32% bump in revenues in 2024, to cross EUR 60m. The company has been able to manage a positive EBITDA since 2019 and is on a roll with recent acquisitions like Cityscoot in France and felyx in the Netherlands.
The group reported strong performance in both B2B and B2C segments with a 25:75 split of business. This was also a year of rapid expansion as Cooltra expanded into 15 new cities across the Netherlands and Belgium. The group is now active in 23 cities with over 16,000 electric vehicles deployed.
That’s a wrap for today. This newsletter will be back next weekend. The posts on the website are more frequent. This is your editor, and you may view my LinkedIn profile here.