The difference between electric scooters and electric motorcycles is that the former have a top speed of between 20 and 50 km/h (12 to 31 mph), while e-motorcycles can reach speeds greater than 50 km/h.
While the latter have a healthy and growing customer base in the Asia Pacific region, consumers tend to consider e-motorcycles a luxury, rather than an essential mode of transportation, and their market in Asia Pacific is expected to be small compared with e-scooters.
According to a new report from Pike Research, the market for electric scooters is expected to expand from around 12 million vehicles in 2012 to a cumulative total of more than 103 million vehicles on Asia’s roads by 2018.
The majority of those will be in China, which will have almost 91 million e-scooters by 2018, according to the report.
Overall sales of electric two-wheel vehicles (e-scooters, e-motorcycles, and e-bicycles) will reach more than 65 million units annually across Asia Pacific in 2018, with 60 million of these in China, the report concludes. On a cumulative basis, sales in China will reach more than 355 million units by 2018 – 93 percent of the total in Asia Pacific.
With its surging economy, widely available electricity, and growing middle class, India in particular is expected to be a bright spot for e-scooters in the coming years, the study finds.
[source: Pike Research]
