5 lakh annual sales by 2030 ultraviolet eyes, record first quarter

Ultraviolette Automotive recently closed its best quarter ever. Between April and June this year, the Bengaluru-based electric motorcycle maker sold more than 1,500 vehicles, up from around 300 in the same quarter last year. This is a growth of over 400 percent.Company co-founders CEO Narayan Subramaniam and CTO Niraj Rajmohan spoke to TOI Auto about the quarter and the company’s direction. Ultraviolette claims to have overtaken the mid-size sales of one rival premium motorcycle brand in India, and is neck-and-neck with another mid-size line, despite operating a fraction of their sales networks. “Ultraviolette has 40 stores today. Even with that distribution, we have surpassed (that rival’s) sales,” Rajmohan said. As for the other rival, the claim was more measured. “And we are at the same place as (their) sales,” Subramaniam said. He added that the company sold around 650 vehicles from those 40 stores in June alone. It should be noted that these figures are Ultraviolette’s own reading of the market.The company’s X47 crossover motorcycle is key to this growth. Rajmohan said pricing the X47 close to comparable petrol bikes, rather than high, was deliberate, and the company has seen growth of over 40 per cent quarter-on-quarter for four to five consecutive quarters. Within Ultraviolette’s own line, the X47 accounts for close to 85 percent of sales, with the F77 making up the rest.Growth is not limited to big cities. Subramaniam said bookings were almost evenly split between tier 1 and tier 2 cities, a trend he linked to an earlier surge in electric scooters raising wider awareness. “The moment the scooter segment is established, people start moving towards some of the more performance-oriented segments of motorcycles,” he said. He also pointed to the company’s battery warranty, which can be extended up to eight years or eight lakh kilometers, as a factor that attracts customers from outside the metros.Talking about Delhi’s EV Policy 2.0, which has been approved by the Delhi government and is effective from July 1, 2026. It will stop the registration of new petrol and CNG two-wheelers in the capital from April 1, 2028, though vehicles already on the road will not be affected. Subramaniam called this policy an opportunity and said that Ultraviolette never planned to remain just a premium motorcycle manufacturer. Two more products, Tesseract and Shockwave, come at more affordable prices. “Our position has always been electric, and it’s not going to be scooters or motorcycles, it’s going to be both,” he said, adding a sales target of four to five million vehicles a year by 2030.Asked about established players entering the electric motorcycle segment, Subramaniam welcomed the competition. “It’s a sign that the segment will now start growing rapidly,” he said. Rajmohan compared this to how electric scooter penetration jumped from under 1 percent to nearly 15 percent after serious manufacturers entered the market.The founders also described widespread customer confusion over the government’s attempt to blend ethanol. Rajmohan added that this uncertainty, paradoxically, is in favor of electric vehicles, since electric vehicles offer “one side, which is a very, very simple and easy purchase.”