By Business India Editorial

HOP Electric Mobility, which on Monday launched its high-speed electric-motorcycle HOP OXO, said it will invest up to Rs200 crore in the next one year on new products, charging infrastructure and more production capacity.

Company’s founder and CEO Ketan Mehta said that the firm is also setting up an electric vehicle park at Neemrana in Rajasthan, jointly with its component suppliers. 

“Cumulatively, till now we’ve invested close to Rs50 crore in this business and going forward we are ready to put in up to Rs200 crore in less than next 12 months,” Mehta said. 

The fresh investments will go into setting up of charging network for the company’s products, which will later be opened up to other brands. The investments will also be used on new products, including upgrading of HOP’s low-speed electric scooters to high speed, besides the EV park which will also have a new production unit, he added. 

The plant at Neemrana will have an annual production capacity of 5 lakh units. The first phase of the plant is expected to be operational by mid-2023. HOP Electric Mobility has a manufacturing unit in Jaipur with a production capacity of 50,000 units per year. 

“In terms of capacity we can do up to 1.2 lakh units a year. That should be sufficient at least for next few months to supply the motorcycle as well as the scooters,” Mehta said. 

“We are currently acquiring land for developing a new EV park, at Neemrana (Rajasthan) which is (in) 60 acres.” The idea”, he added, “is to create an EV ecosystem basically where all the components and all the products are made at the same location. The 60 acres will be utilised by us and our component suppliers and partners. We will be allocating the land then to set up their units also.”

Total investment into the EV park will be jointly done by HOP and its suppliers and components manufacturers. Mehta said the company will be raising external funding through Series A round. It has already raised $2.6 million out of total $10 million planned. “We will be closing the balance of the fund raising by end of the financial year,” Mehta said. 

The company's new electric bike HOP OXO, with starting price of Rs1.25 lakh, is powered by a 3.75 KWh battery pack with a range of 150 km per charge. It can be charged at any 16 Amp power socket with 0 to 80 percent charging in less than four hours, the company said. It comes in two variants, OXO and OXO-X with introductory prices of Rs1.25 lakh and Rs1.4 lakh. The company's existing models include low-speed electric scooters HOP LYF and HOP LEO with prices starting at Rs65,500 and Rs72,500 respectively.