Hybrid Scooter Sdn Bhd, a relatively unknown player in the automotive sector, hopes to capture 2% of the total motorcycle market this year with the launch of the country’s first hybrid scooter.
“We hope to sell 16,000 units in 2011, which is about 2% of the total motorcycle market as at end-2009,” chairman Datuk Dr Mohd Yahya Nordin said at a media briefing yesterday.
He said the company hoped to increase its share of the total motorcycle market to between 3% and 4% in the next three to five years.
Asked about the prospects for hybrid motorcycles in Malaysia, Mohd Yahya said: “Hybrid technology is in the matured stage and not in its incubation period. We believe that this will be the trend in the next five years. We believe all motorcycles will be developed this way.”
The company intends to start selling the scooters by next month offering two models - the 80cc Enviro 80HX which will cost between RM7,200 and RM7,800 and the 50cc Enviro 50HX which will be priced from RM6,800 to RM7,200.
The scooters currently have about 40% local content.
Mohd Yahya said that the company planned to increase the local content of the scooters to about 70% within the next three years and this would lower the prices of the scooters further.
He said a conventional scooter in the same range (as its hybrid scooters) cost between RM6,000 and RM6,800.
“Our scooters are just a little bit more expensive,” Mohd Yahya said, adding that the company had invested RM6mil in research and development for the production of its hybrid scooters. Funded by bank loans, the company intends to invest RM16mil more on its operations this year.
He said the scooters’ hybrid drive system combined a conventional internal combustion engine with an electric propulsion system and provided 30% more fuel economy than conventional scooters.
Mohd Yahya said as the scooters could run exclusively on an electric propulsion system, minimal usage of the combustion engine also meant that users could also save money by prolonging their service intervals.
He added that the batteries had a lifespan of about three years.
Serunai Emas Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Aubrey O’Hara said Hybrid Scooter Sdn Bhd had the sole manufacturing license for hybrid motorcycles in Malaysia from the International Trade and Industry Ministry. Serunai Emas is the marketing arm for Hybrid Scooter.
Serunai Emas consultant Rajesh Kumar said the company was in talks with a major player from the local automotive industry to distribute its scooters, adding that it was also in talks with foreign parties to distribute its scooters in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
According to Mohd Yahya, Hybrid Scooter is 90 percent owned by Revolution Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, which also manufactures electric wheelchairs, bicycles and carts. The company has a paid-up capital of RM1mil.
