Mahindra is debuting in the US market with this product. No, it’s not its iconic SUVs!

Mahindra, the country's largest SUV maker, is ready to make an entry on US roads through two wheelers. It will soon launch Vespa-like electric scooter called the GenZe in the US.

The company hopes to win over campus dwellers with a $2,999, electric scooters called GenZe, which goes on sale this fall in California, Oregon and Michigan. Sales might expand to other states and Europe, depending on its outcome.

The further course of action depends on this current launch. If buyers like it, Mahindra could use the GenZe as a springboard into the car market, just as Honda made the leap from motorcycles to cars in 1970s.

But this strategy has some risks. Firstly, scooters are not as popular in the US as elsewhere in the world, for example, people in China buy as many electric scooters in a day as Americans do in a full year.

Secondly, consumers might not trust Mumbai-based Mahindra, which scrapped an attempt to sell vehicles here five years ago because it couldn't meet US safety standards.

“The pressure has really been on to make sure that we get this right,” says Terence Duncan, the head of customer engagement for the GenZe and one of its chief designers. “What we're doing, really, is introducing the brand to American customers.”

Mahindra designed the GenZe in Silicon Valley with features favored by tech-savvy Millennials, like a secure laptop charging port under the seat. It opened its four stores in San Francisco and Portland because buyers there are more accepting of two-wheeled transportation. In Michigan, buyers can get a GenZe at the Ann Arbor factory where it's made.

The GenZe only goes up to 30 miles per hour, so riders won't need a license. Its most innovative feature is a 28-pound removable battery, which riders can unhook and carry inside to charge. The battery takes 3.5 hours to fully charge, and the scooter goes for 30 miles on a charge. A 7-inch touchscreen display tells drivers their speed and range.

Only about 5,000 electric scooters will be sold in the US this year, according to Ryan Citron, who analyzes the market for the consulting company Navigant Research. Among them: the ZEV 2700 and the Bravo EVT-168, which cost about the same as the GenZe. By comparison, 30,000 will be sold in Europe and 3.9 million in China, where electric scooters cost less than half the price of a GenZe because they use a cheaper type of battery.

Citron says about 46,000 gas-powered scooters will be sold in the US this year. Any scooter has a tough time selling when gas prices are relatively low, he says.

Citron believes the electric scooter market will grow to around 20,000 annual sales by 2024 as companies like Mahindra and Oregon's Boxx Corp. enter the market. Another one to watch is Gogoro, a Taiwan-based scooter maker that wants to develop stations where riders can swap out batteries.

Mahindra is targeting college campuses and also plans to supply scooter-sharing programs like Scoot. So far, it has around 300 GenZe orders from people who paid a $100 deposit. The company expects to make around 3,000 scooters in the first year, Duncan says.

This isn't Mahindra's first attempt to crack the US car market. The $16.9 billion conglomerate, which controls about 40% of the SUV market in India, began courting US dealers about a decade ago with the promise of delivering vehicles by 2009. But Mahindra had trouble meeting US vehicle regulations and canceled its plans in 2010.

Mahindra does sell tractors in the US, but wants to build its name in urban areas, says GenZe CEO Vish Palekar. So in 2012, it set up a small group in Palo Alto and told them to come up with a vehicle that would get people around cities more easily.

(Image: Indiatimes)