Ultraviolette Automotive wants to break even in 2026. Is it feasible?

The Bengaluru-based electric 2-wheeler maker, which is backed by TVS Motor, Qualcomm Ventures and Zoho Corporation, among others, has two products on the road and two in the pipeline currently.

Earlier this week, at the Fast Forward India event in Bengaluru, the company unveiled Ultraviolette Tesseract, an EV scooter, and Ultraviolette Shockwave, an enduro motorcycle meant for off-road racing. Both these products would be launched in the first quarter of 2026. The company aims to enter the mass-market segment through its scooter and boost its market share in its bid to break even - a stage when a business earns enough to pay for its expenses, without making profits yet.

Co-founder and chief executive Narayan Subramaniam told Mint that sales of its existing fleet of motorcycles, the F77 Mach 2 and F77 Superstreet, were picking up.

“We currently have just over 1,000 vehicles on the road, and that’s only in Bangalore. With the performance motorcycle platform, we should see steady growth over the next year," Narayan said.

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Tesseract scooter is priced at ₹1,45,000 (ex-showroom), while the Shockwave bike starts at ₹1,75,000. However, for the first 10,000 bookings of the Tesseract, the price has been knocked down to ₹1,20,000, while for the first 1,000 for the Shockwave, the price has been set at ₹1,49,999. 

The F77 Mach 2 costs ₹2,99,000, and F77 Superstreet comes at ₹2,99,000.

Challenges and concerns

Industry experts are more cautious, though, saying that EV startups are trying to put up a brave front to keep the public sentiment around EVs positive so that valuations stay high.

“It’s not even possible for a company like Hero MotoCorp to launch 10 vehicles in three years. A lot of this is based on the valuation game rather than true reality," said an industry expert, who declined to be named.

An analyst who visited Ultraviolette's factories last year said that the company’s aim to break even by mid-2026 “looks totally impossible to me."

Scaling operations

In October 2024, the company expanded its India footprint by opening stores across 14 different cities, 13 in India and one in Kathmandu, Nepal. The company plans to expand into global markets with a focus on Germany, Spain, Portugal, and France by April this year.

Another issue that an analyst raised was EV scooter’s price point. “Legacy players are entering the market now. I think price competition will be there. India is a very price-sensitive market," said Soumen Mandal, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

He reasoned that Ultraviolette’s scooters and motorcycles come with a lot of premium high-tech features that aren’t going to be necessary, especially to those in the mass-market segment.

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“The features are great, but they don’t fit into the current scenario in India. Features like the addition of two radars cost $100-$200. Things like this are what is pushing the price up," Mandal said.

Narayan, however, disagrees. " I think it is extremely competitive. We are prioritising access across the country to as many people as possible. We have gone above and beyond to make that happen. Today, India's largest selling scooters start at ₹1-1.2 lakh."

EV industry trends

The company’s direct competitor, Ola Electric, has been struggling as well. The Bhavish Aggarwal-led company claims to be the market leader in the EV two-wheeler space. 

During the Q3 post-earnings analyst call, Aggarwal said that the company’s sequentially higher losses were a result of the additional expenditure on service centre and dealership experiences. Mint had previously reported how the company’s service centres had a backlog of 80,000 complaints per month.

February’s data from the  (the Union road transport and highways ministry’s centralised vehicle registry) shows that Ola Electric’s registrations have fallen to a near three-year low.

Ola Electric saw 8,647 registrations in February this year, down from 24,376 units the month prior. In comparison, legacy brands like Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor registered 21,430 and 18,805 units, respectively, for their electric vehicles.

To put Ultraviolette into perspective, the company has seen 125 registrations in 2025 so far. Lifetime registrations since 2023 stand at 795 units.

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There’s no doubt, however, that EV adoption is growing in India. Adoption jumped from 0.3% in FY21 to 5.4% in FY24, according to a Boston Consulting Group report. The consulting firm expects adoption to gather pace, rising to 30-40% by 2030.

A KPMG report points out that electric vehicle sales across two-wheelers and four-wheelers in India have hit 1.2 million, but challenges continue for the EV ecosystem. Some of the challenges require a shift in the approach to physical infrastructure, like establishing common standards for charger connectors across vehicle categories. Similarly, power distribution infrastructure needs to be augmented to ensure a smooth rollout of public charging infrastructure.