Bajaj’s aggressive push threatens Ola’s EV dominance as share slips below 30%

India’s electric vehicle (EV) market is no longer a startup playground.

Bajaj Auto, a ‘legacy’ two-wheeler maker once far behind the EV race where Ola Electric and other startups were shaping the market, has nearly doubled its market share since the start of the fiscal in April. Bajaj has positioned itself to challenge the market leader Ola Electric, whose grip on the market slipped to a precarious 27% in September 2024, down from nearly 50% in April and below 30% for the first time in a year, a Mint analysis of the government's vehicle registration data showed.

Ola Electric has dominated India’s electric two-wheeler market for the past three years, but September 2024 marks a turning point.

Read more: Ola Electric builds new service team as complaints mount to 80,000 a month

For the first time in 12 months, Ola’s market share dropped below 30%, a threshold it had previously dipped under only in September 2023. The company’s dominance peaked in April 2024, when its market share surged past 50%. However, this high point has since been followed by a steady decline, culminating in its sub-30% share in September 2024. (See chart)

September also brought another key shift: for the first time, the top three players—Ola Electric, Bajaj Auto, and TVS Motor—all held a market share between 20% and 27%. Historically, the top two players had maintained dominance, while the third-ranked competitor consistently lagged below 20%.

Bajaj Auto’s rise follows a strategy of waiting to charge at a market after upstarts invest heavily in creating the market.

From holding just 11.5% of the market in April 2024, the company has surged to 21.5% by September, surpassing TVS to become the second-largest player in the Indian EV space. Bajaj’s aggressive growth is placing intense pressure on Ola, which is doubling down to maintain its lead, by offering new multi-brand outlet retail for the first time, despite offering the widest range of electric two-wheelers in the country.

Read more: What an IPO signals about Ather's battle against Ola Electric

“We are aspiring for leadership in the EV,” Rakesh Sharma, executive director, Bajaj Auto told Mint. "We got the cost structures right, selling 7,000-8,000 units in April, and now we are aiming for 20,000-25,000 units. Our goal is to ensure we are a strong contender, ideally number one, but being a strong number two is also acceptable. The key is to avoid being a follower, as that means your destiny is out of your hands."

“We have a certain financial philosophy—we balance that with what the customer needs. We optimize the company’s needs with what the customer can afford and the product. So, you start with the product, with features that the customer can afford, then we iterate and go to market. There will certainly be more affordable products also,” he said.

Sharma also said that the market's reliance on electric two-wheeler subsidies cannot last in perpetuity.

"Subsidies distort the investment and buying decisions," Sharma explained. “Things that are more structural, like the PLI [Production Linked Incentive], are better because they funnel investments in a certain way. We are not demanding or howling for consumer subsidies. It cannot work.”

Read more: For Bharat Forge, defence a winner, but auto a sore spot

Bajaj Auto critiqued the oversimplified rhetoric surrounding the “death of ICE” (internal combustion engine) vehicles. “All these shrill pronouncements, this death of ICE talk—it's very self-serving and short-term. It creates hype without acknowledging the diverse needs of customers and the challenges governments face. Look at Europe—everyone’s backtracking. Here, we’re standing on rooftops and making bold claims. This singular kind of approach is very misleading for customers and stakeholders.”