“We have started EVs for last-mile deliveries for ice-cream vending,” said Jayen Mehta, managing director of India’s largest dairy maker Amul, which sells ice-cream, milk, butter and cheese. “Our milk distributors too are using EVs in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.”
The ecommerce sector is leaning heavily toward electric three-wheelers.
“The operating costs are about a fraction of diesel or CNG-driven ones, translating into substantial savings for operators,” said Amitabh Saran, cofounder of electric three-wheeler company Altigreen, which has supplied EVs to Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, HUL, Bisleri and Coca-Cola. “Even if we were to carve out use cases which require heavier payloads and exports, the market size is still about 1.2-1.3 million units per annum. India has not yet explored formats for three-wheelers fully. The potential is huge.”
Companies investing in charging stations
Overall, over 100,000 electric cars and about a million electric two-wheelers (E2Ws) are expected to be sold this fiscal year, from about 50,000 electric cars and about 727,000 E2Ws in FY23.The adoption of EVs is happening across vehicle types, and companies said they are investing as much in charging stations to enable seamless operations.Amazon India said it is partnering with Eicher Motors and Buses for 1,000 electric trucks, for middle-mile and last-mile delivery over the next five years. TVS Motor Co., which supplies to Swiggy, Amazon and Rapido, has inked a strategic partnership with food delivery and search platform Zomato for 10,000 electric scooters over the next two years.
“These vehicles will contribute towards revolutionising last-mile delivery, enabling reduction of carbon footprint. We are continuing to invest in improving charging access for TVS EV,” TVS Motor chief executive KN Radhakrishnan said in a post-earnings call last month.
India is witnessing an increased focus on electric commercial vehicles to curb crude imports and vehicular pollution, as well as to save fixed operating costs, especially for makers of daily essentials that need to service consumers and retail channels frequently and so have higher logistics costs.
“Bottling partners across the Coca-Cola system in India have upwards of 5,000 electric vehicles for distribution purposes. This number will increase as adoption and transition to EVs gathers momentum,” said a spokesperson for the beverage maker, which sells Coke and Thums Up cola and the Sprite lime drink.
Economics is propelling the drive toward EV adoption, said Sameer Aggarwal, founder of RevFin, which has been financing the purchase of electric vehicles for commercial use since 2018. “The running cost per km for an electric vehicle for commercial use is nearly a fourth of the current Rs 4 for a petrol or diesel vehicle,” he said.
About 50-55% of the market for three-wheelers is currently electric. “We expect this penetration to increase to 80% in the next one year,” Aggarwal said. “In the two-wheeler space also, 60-70% of the market should go electric in the next three years.”
