Lucknow: Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL), leading manufacturer of passenger cars, has claimed that there is a long way to go in the country for full fledged electric vehicles.
“Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a target to covert all the vehicles into electric by 2030 but presently there is big challenge before the automobile industry to improve the batteries and to expand the charging facilities. Besides large investment and technology breakthrough is required as presently the electric vehicles are very costly and hence only one per cent of the vehicles in the world are electric,” said Jnaneswar Sen, Senior Vice-President, Marketing and Sales, Honda Cars India here today.
Mr Sen also admitted that the growth rate of the country would get affected if the government goes with the idea to impose 10 per cent cess on big passenger cars and SUVs. “Around 50 per cent of the manufacturing growth comes from the automobile industry and this additional cess would certainly hit the growth rate.”
Meanwhile, he claimed that Honda cars continued with the growth momentum, recording a cumulative growth of 21 per cent for first quarters of 2017-18 with Uttar Pradesh as its home market has a growth of around 45 per cent during that period. Mr Sen said in UP, Honda car has 25 dealers in 18 cities though they cover a total of 40 cities in the state.
“The post-GST price benefits, healthy monsoon, onset of festive season in many regions has helped in boosting the sales. The newly launched models such as Honda City , the Sporty Lifestyle Vehicle Honda WR-V continue to receive strong customer demand with cumulative bookings of over 43,000 and 26,000 units, since their launch in February-March 2017 respectively,” he claimed.
