Two-wheeler leaders are riding piggy-back on the technology of their foreign joint venture partners to kickstart their own EV (electric vehicles) programmes in the country.

Hero MotoCorp has announced a joint venture with Taiwan based Gogoro Inc, a leading battery swapping EV player, and said it would launch its first EV in the last quarter of 2021-2022.

Bajaj Auto is restructuring its joint venture with KTM AG to get better access to EV technology from its parent company Piere Mobility AG (PMAG), while TVS Motors and BMW Motorrad have extended the terms of their joint venture to develop joint platforms for EVs.

Hero MotoCorp has a partnership with Taiwanese electric scooter manufacturer Gogoro to build a battery swapping network across India and manufacture Hero-branded, Gogoro Network-powered electric two-wheelers.

Gogoro, established in 2011, has become a leading EV player in the Taiwanese market since the launch of its first e-scooter in 2015. It has over 2,000 battery swap stations that handle up to 265,000 swaps on a daily basis. The batteries and charging stations are all linked to the Gogoro Network cloud service which keeps a tab on battery condition and decides how fast the batteries need to charge.

The ‘‘Powered by Gogoro Network’’ programme gives Gogoro’s partners access to the company’s innovations and intellectual property, including its drivetrains and controllers, components and smart systems so that they can develop and roll out their own electric vehicles that integrate Gogoro's battery swapping facilities.

Speaking on the tie-up, Pawan Munjal, chairman and CEO at Hero MotoCorp, said, “This partnership will further extend the work which we are doing at our R&D hubs at the Centre of Innovation and Technology (CIT) in Jaipur and our tech centre in Germany”. The company also owns a near 35 per cent stake in Ather Energy, one of the top electric two-wheeler manufacturers in India.

Bajaj Auto Ltd is eyeing access to electric vehicle (EV) technologies through the restructuring of its joint venture with Austrian bikemaker KTM AG, sources in the company said.

Bajaj Auto International Holding BV, its wholly owned subsidiary, has swapped 46.5 per cent out of its about 48 per cent stake in KTM AG for a 49.9 per cent stake in PTW Holding, thus becoming an equity holder along with Pierer lndustrie in PTW Holding.

Owned by industrialist Stefan Pierer, Pierer Industrie holds more than a 63 per cent stake in Pierer Mobility AG (PMAG), which now owns a 99.7 per cent stake in KTM AG, the maker of motorcycles under KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas brands.

“The restructuring will simplify Bajaj Auto’s shareholding structure in KTM Group. Besides KTM AG, the parent company Pierer Mobility has several other subsidiaries including Pexco, which makes electric bikes," a company insider said, indicating the company’s plans to get access to EV technologies.

In December 2019, PMAG inducted electric bike maker Pexco GmbH as a wholly owned subsidiary. The acquisition represented early steps by PMAG aiming for two-wheeler electrification globally as the company drew plans for Pexco to achieve a turnover of 100 million euros in 2020.

“Bajaj Auto’s intent behind swapping its stake from KTM to its parent company is to get a better access to the EV technologies as Pierer Mobility also has a subsidiary named Pexco, which produces and sells electric bikes," said an auto analyst. Coming from KTM, the EV technologies would be more sophisticated and could be used in electric bikes as well, he added.