Two-wheelers, EVs power September auto sales as festive demand picks up

India’s two-wheeler market hit a record September as festive buying picked up pace, while electric vehicles reached their highest-ever monthly retail sales, signalling a strong start to the crucial festive season, data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) showed.

Two-wheeler sales rose 33.08% year-on-year to 17.9 lakh units in September, the highest-ever September for the segment, while sales rose 4.41% from August. Rural and urban markets grew almost evenly, with sales rising 33.11% and 33.06%, respectively, from a year earlier.

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The headline growth, however, came against a weak base.

Buyers had postponed purchases in September 2025 ahead of the GST 2.0 rollout later that month, making the year-on-year jump unusually large.

The stronger signal came from the sequential growth and the first-half performance, with two-wheeler sales up 20.43% in April-September.

The bigger shift was happening inside the two-wheeler market, where electric vehicles accounted for 11.58% of September sales.

EV retail across all vehicle categories touched an all-time high of about 3.34 lakh units, taking overall EV penetration to nearly 13%.

Electric mobility was already much further ahead in three-wheelers, where EVs accounted for 64.9% of September retail sales. The trend was also visible in passenger vehicles, where alternative-fuel vehicles including CNG, hybrids and EVs accounted for about 41% of sales, almost matching petrol and ethanol vehicles at 41.27%.

Road ahead

The festive season is expected to provide the next push.

Urban two-wheeler sales rose 5.29% from August, compared with 3.62% in rural markets, while 63% of dealers reported that booking pipelines were building. FADA said 75.57% of dealers expected October sales to grow as Navratri and Dussehra approached.

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The festive period also offers a crucial test of whether the September momentum could hold. October is expected to provide a cleaner year-on-year comparison after the GST 2.0 anniversary, while rising vehicle prices and inventory management remained key risks.

FADA remains cautiously optimistic about the next three months, with 78.28% of dealers expecting sales to grow.

For the two-wheeler market, the combination of strong demand and rising EV penetration suggested that the festive season was not just bringing more buyers to showrooms but was also changing what they bought.