New Delhi (India), 2nd May 2023: India’s top four electric two-wheeler manufacturers, Ather Energy, TVS Motor Company, Ola Electric, and Hero MotoCorp Ltd, plan to refund customers for the chargers they shipped with their e-scooters, informed sources.
The chargers were invoiced in addition to the cost of the vehicles. The move comes after discussions between automakers and the Ministry of Heavy Industries, which moved to investigate the companies over allegations of billing smart chargers and performance and feature-related software packs separately from the scooter in order to achieve an ex-factory cost of 1,50,000, the ceiling price that OEMs must meet in order to qualify for incentives under the government’s Fame-II scheme.
The scheme provides up to a 40% subsidy, equating to up to 60,000 per scooter. The ministry has instructed the OEMs to provide customers with a refund for the amount they paid for the chargers.
The Ministry of Finance has terminated subsidies for two OEMs, Hero Electric and Okinawa Autotech, after investigations revealed that both had failed to meet FAME II’s localisation criteria, forcing both companies to refund the subsidies they had received thus far.
However, Hero stated that it had not yet received such a letter from the Department of Heavy Industries.
Sohinder Gill, CEO of Hero Electric said in a statement,”The news in the media seems to have been planted as a last-ditch attempt to derail our business by exaggerating, sensationalising and maligning our brand, a syndicated attack that has been going on for the last 15 months to shake our market leadership of close to a decade.”
