Back in the 80s and 90s, Lohia Machinery Limited (LML) joined hands with Italian company Piaggio Vespa and had a lot of iconic scooters in its range Select, Supremo, Vespa NV3, Star and Sensation. The company has revealed that it is planning to invest around Rs. 1,000 crore over the next three to five years for its EV operations. It's planning to set up over 1,000 dealerships across India.
Yogesh Bhatia, Managing Director and CEO,“We are very excited to be back and our upcoming products will be the latest in technology as well as look design. We will soon launch electric bikes and electric scooters. We are trying to launch our products in early 2022 with an aim to provide better and affordable commute options to the middle class.."
Encouraged by the great response for the Chetak, the Java, is it time to resurrect some other old skeletons? LML was a popular 90s brand, which had a JV with Vespa. Vespa’s heydays were in its tieup with Bajaj. Even today Vespa itself is a niche player in scooters - doing much better in three wheelers. If they do launch their Electrica, they will have to do some serious weight management to get decent range. Talking of three wheelers there is already a brand called Lohia Auto, which has no connection with LML - but will serve to confuse customers. Incidentally it has a model called Oma. Analogy is SPJIMR and SP Jain - two schools with the same name, but very different DNA.
Yogesh Bhatia, the promoter of LML electric - is basically a consumer electronics guy. He has dabbled in EVs before - had got a delivery vehicle called Detel EV, which is one of the cheapest EVs in India - at 42,000. But they were earlier operating as a pure e commerce model, not sure of how that model worked. Have not seen any of these vehicles on the road as yet.