Bajaj Auto’s Chetak has crossed 10 lakh cumulative retail sales in India, Autocar India reported, citing Vahan data as of November 6. The electric scooter is only the third Indian electric two-wheeler brand to reach the milestone, after Ola Electric and TVS Motor Company, and it got there the slow way, which makes the number more interesting than it looks.
A slow start, then a sharp turn
The modern Chetak arrived in January 2020 as a premium, metal-bodied scooter with a price that put it above most rivals, and for years it sold in modest numbers while Ola and TVS grabbed the headlines. The comeback has been quiet rather than loud: no splashy relaunch, no price war, just a steady widening of the range and the dealer network until the monthly numbers started compounding. There is a small irony in the timing. The Chetak name was revived as a nostalgia play, a metal scooter trading on a 1970s icon, and the buyers who have pushed it past 10 lakh are mostly people who never rode the original. Nostalgia opened the door, and the product had to do the rest.
2026 is the year it clicked
In 2026 so far the Chetak has retailed 4,12,409 units, up 73 percent year on year, Autocar Professional reported, and October was its best month yet at 49,170 units. That gives it a 22.5 percent share of the 18,32,799 electric two-wheelers sold in India between January 1 and November 6. It sits behind TVS at 4,81,704 units and ahead of Ather at 2,99,778, Hero Vida at 2,07,583 and Ola Electric at 1,21,061, Autocar Professional reported. With 55 days left in the year, Bajaj needs 87,591 more units to reach 5 lakh in a calendar year for the first time.
The milestone lands in a month that was already a record month for electric two-wheelers, with October registrations hitting 2.24 lakh units. The difference is that October’s record was a market story, while this one belongs to a single model that spent years being written off as too expensive and too slow.
The colour, the price, and the gap to No. 1
Bajaj marked the milestone with a new Citrus Rush colour, carbike360 reported. The range runs from about Rs 91,000 for the base C2501 to Rs 1.57 lakh for the top C3501 ex-showroom, according to Smartprix and BikeDekho, with the top variant offering a 3.5 kWh battery and 153 km of claimed IDC range, BikeDekho reported. Electric cars are having their own moment too, with the Mini Cooper Electric returning on November 27, but the Chetak’s fight is at the other end of the price ladder, where a few thousand rupees decide the sale.
The gap to TVS is 69,295 units in 2026, and closing it means beating the iQube in the months when festive demand fades, which is a harder test than a record October.
Capacity is the quiet constraint behind the milestone. Bajaj produced only 40,000 Chetaks in September against a planned 60,000, its joint managing director Rakesh Sharma told reporters, and the company is expanding total annual capacity to around 7,75,000 units from 6,25,000 over the next six to nine months, aiming to lift Chetak capacity to 80,000 a month by the fourth quarter, The Financial Express reported. If that expansion lands on time, the 5 lakh target for 2026 is within reach. If it slips, waiting lists will do what rivals could not. Ten lakh scooters in under seven years is a real achievement for a brand that spent its first years being underestimated. Whether the Chetak can keep growing once the festive season ends, and whether Bajaj’s factories can keep up with demand, will decide if this milestone is a peak or a stepping stone.