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By Piyush P. Yadav

Hero MotoCorp sells more two-wheelers than any company on earth and, until this year, was an afterthought in India’s electric scooter market. That has changed in two moves made ten days apart. On 28 August the company completed a Rs 1,758 crore purchase of 1.188 crore Ather Energy shares, lifting its stake in the Bengaluru scooter maker to 32.8 per cent on a fully diluted basis. On 7 September, at the SIAM annual convention in New Delhi, chief executive Harshavardhan Chitale said the company is “clearly focusing on being number one” in electric two-wheelers and is “not shy” about it, and that Vida production is rising 50 per cent this month and will double by December. Vida is fourth in the market on its own. Vida and Ather together outsold TVS in the first eight months of 2026. This is how the two-brand strategy works, what the numbers say, and whether the number-one claim is credible.

The two brands, by the numbers

Vida (Hero MotoCorp) Ather Energy (32.8% Hero-owned) Combined TVS (market leader)
Jan-Aug 2026 registrations 1,48,069 2,29,099 3,77,168 3,56,579
Growth on Jan-Aug 2025 +151% +83% About +105% +77%
Market share, Jan-Aug 2026 11% 17% 28% 26%
Share a year earlier 7% 15% 22% About 25%
Best month of 2026 July: 22,989 August: 28,708 July: 55,823
FY2026 full year 1,48,473 2,60,070 4,08,543 3,67,501

Registration data is from VAHAN as compiled by Autocar India and Autopunditz. The combined column is the one Hero’s leadership points to when it says the group has already held the top position in some months, and it is arithmetically true: Vida plus Ather outsold TVS in FY2026 and again in the first eight months of 2026. Whether that counts as being number one depends on whether you think a 32.8 per cent shareholding makes Ather a Hero brand, which is precisely the question the company is careful not to answer.

Move one: the Ather stake

Hero has been an Ather investor since 2016 and held about 29.48 per cent at the end of June 2026. In July it proposed a further investment of up to Rs 1,000 crore, and Ather responded with an issue of 76,19,047 convertible warrants at Rs 1,260 each. The August transaction went further: 1,18,80,000 shares bought from an existing shareholder for Rs 1,758 crore, completed on 28 August and taking Hero to 32.8 per cent. At the implied price of roughly Rs 1,480 a share, Hero paid a premium to the warrant price, which tells you it wanted the stake more than it wanted a bargain.

What the stake does not do is merge the two companies. Chitale has said Vida and Ather will keep independent product roadmaps, and the collaboration on the table is at the component level: battery sourcing, software and motors, where the two could pool purchasing and engineering without the brands touching. Ather’s positioning is premium and technology-led, with the 450 series, the Rizta family scooter and, since late August, the Rs 99,999 Konarc we tested in our Ather Konarc deep dive. Vida’s is mainstream and price-led. Hero is, in effect, running a premium brand it does not control and a mass brand it does, and treating the pair as a portfolio.

The wider portfolio

Hero also holds a stake in Euler Motors, the electric three-wheeler and small commercial vehicle maker, which gives it a position in the cargo segment where the group has no product of its own. And it is a co-founder, with Ather and IPEC India, of the Light Electric Vehicle Acceleration Forum, the interoperable fast-charging initiative that now links about 20 companies and close to 6,000 charging points. A Vida owner can fast-charge on an Ather Grid point and vice versa, which is a practical benefit no other two-wheeler group offers.

Move two: doubling Vida

Vida’s growth is the fastest of any brand in the top four: 151 per cent in the first eight months of the year, a share that has gone from 7 to 11 per cent, and a June month in which registrations rose 176 per cent year on year. The product doing the work is the VX2, which Hero sells in more configurations than any rival offers on a single model.

Vida VX2 configuration Battery Claimed range Ex-showroom price
VX2 with battery subscription (BaaS) 2.2 to 3.4 kWh removable 93 to 142 km From Rs 59,490 plus per-km battery fee
VX2 Go / Plus, removable battery 2.2 to 3.4 kWh removable 93 to 142 km From about Rs 85,000
VX2 Go FB, fixed battery 3.1 kWh fixed 128 km Rs 1.13 lakh
VX2 top configuration 4.4 kWh Up to 187 km About Rs 1.10 lakh on listing sites, less on the subscription route

Two of those rows explain Hero’s strategy. The battery-subscription route, which we costed in our guide to battery-subscription electric scooters, gets the VX2’s sticker price under Rs 60,000, which is petrol-scooter territory and the reason Vida is winning in towns where the Rs 1.2 lakh scooters of 2024 never sold. The fixed-battery VX2 Go FB, launched in August at Rs 1.13 lakh, is about Rs 10,000 cheaper than the removable-battery equivalent and is aimed at buyers who have a plug at home and do not want to carry a pack upstairs. Chitale’s observation that removable-battery scooters “continue strong sales” even after the fixed option arrived suggests Hero has found two distinct customers rather than cannibalised one.

The capacity numbers are the commitment. A 50 per cent rise in September takes Vida from the roughly 19,000 to 23,000 monthly run rate of the summer toward 30,000; doubling by December implies a capability above 40,000 a month. Bajaj, by comparison, has raised Chetak capacity to 60,000 a month, and TVS’s record month was 55,823. Hero is not yet building at the leaders’ scale, but it is building at a rate that would make Vida a credible third by itself and, with Ather, the largest group in the market.

Is number one credible?

Three tests. On volume, Vida alone would need to roughly double its share to catch TVS, which is what the December capacity target is sized for; with Ather’s 17 per cent, the group is already there on a combined basis. On product, Vida has the price ladder but not yet the flagship: the VX2 range tops out at a 4.4 kWh battery, where TVS has the iQube ST and Bajaj the Chetak 35 series. On distribution, Hero has the deepest dealer network in the country, and the fact that Vida sells through Hero dealerships as well as Vida hubs is why it has grown fastest outside the metros. The gap is in the middle of the range, and it is the gap Ather fills.

The broader market context is in our report on TVS overtaking Ola in cumulative sales: the four leading brands now hold 76 per cent of the market, and the fight for the top has become a three-way contest between TVS, Bajaj and the Hero group, with Ola outside it. Our battery warranty comparison is worth reading before choosing between a Vida and an Ather, because the two brands’ terms differ despite the shared shareholder.

What it means for Hero MotoCorp

The group sold 5,68,398 vehicles in August 2026, up 2.65 per cent, of which scooters were 74,547. Vida’s 18,978 registrations in the same month are therefore about a quarter of Hero’s scooter volume and a little over 3 per cent of its total. Electric is still a rounding error on Hero’s income statement, and the Rs 1,758 crore it just spent on Ather is about the size of a single quarter’s profit. But Chitale’s phrase for what is happening in the market, “a rapid structural transition towards urban scooters and electric vehicles,” is the language of a company that has concluded the petrol commuter motorcycle it dominates will not be where growth comes from, and that owning a third of the premium electric leader and all of the fastest-growing mass brand is cheaper than building either from scratch.

Sources & Further Reading

Frequently asked questions

How much of Ather Energy does Hero MotoCorp own?

32.8 per cent on a fully diluted basis, after buying 1.188 crore shares for Rs 1,758 crore in a transaction completed on 28 August 2026. It held about 29.48 per cent at the end of June 2026.

Where does Vida rank in India’s electric two-wheeler market?

Fourth, with 1,48,069 registrations between January and August 2026, an 11 per cent share and 151 per cent growth. Combined with Ather’s 2,29,099, the Hero group’s 3,77,168 exceeds market leader TVS’s 3,56,579.

What has Hero said about its EV target?

Chief executive Harshavardhan Chitale said on 7 September 2026 that Hero is “clearly focusing on being number one” in electric two-wheelers, that Vida output is rising 50 per cent in September and that capacity will double by December.

Will Vida and Ather merge?

No plan has been announced. Hero has said the two will keep independent product roadmaps and may collaborate on battery sourcing, software and motors. They already share the interoperable fast-charging network of about 6,000 points.