Bangalore Chetan Maini launched India’s first electric car at the beginning of the millennium. Since then, electromobility has not been able to achieve a breakthrough in the mass market in the world’s most populous country. The tech entrepreneur from Bangalore is therefore starting with vehicles that are more commonplace in India: mopeds and rickshaws.
His efforts to transform transportation in the emerging country differ significantly from the approach taken by automakers in developed countries. Maini’s goal: E-mobility should also be affordable for people with low incomes.
He starts with the most expensive components of electric vehicles, the batteries. His start-up Sun Mobility, which counts the German automotive supplier Bosch among its investors and technology partners, rents out the batteries and thus ensures that customers can do without the expensive purchase.
You can exchange empty batteries for full ones at any time at the Sun Mobility charging stations. The fees are based on the amount of energy consumed. A full charge for an e-moped that can drive 80 kilometers with it can be had for the equivalent of around 90 cents.
The one-off acquisition costs for electric two-wheelers would be almost halved, Maini calculates. That makes them cheaper than combustion engines – and therefore also attractive for the general public. “The central criterion for the technology to have a truly sustainable effect is affordability,” says Maini, Chairman of Sun Mobility, in an interview with the Handelsblatt.
King Charles III and Olaf Scholz have already visited Sun Mobility
The approach of the electric vehicle pioneer met with great international interest: The British monarch Charles III, then crown prince, took a test drive in an electric rickshaw equipped by Sun Mobility. Chancellor Olaf Scholz also visited the 53-year-old’s company premises a few weeks ago.
For the entrepreneur, the realization that innovation must be affordable is one of the most important lessons from his time as India’s first electric car manufacturer. In 2001, the engineer, who trained at Stanford University in California, launched the Reva electric car on the subcontinent – seven years before the start of production of the first Tesla in the USA.
The mini vehicle was just two and a half meters long and 1.3 meters wide and could accommodate a maximum of two adults in the front seats and two children in the back seat. When fully charged, a distance of 80 kilometers could be covered with the eight installed lead-acid batteries – at a top speed of 65 kilometers per hour. “Back then, that was more than enough for a city vehicle,” Maini recalls.
In the early phase of electric mobility, he also aroused interest in Europe. In the early years, Maini’s vehicle was the best-selling electric car in London. Nevertheless, it remained a niche existence, especially in its home market. With a price of around 6000 euros according to the exchange rate at the time, a Reva was far too expensive for most of its compatriots.
The streets of India are characterized by rickshaws, tuktuks and two-wheelers.
(Photo: IMAGO/Andreas Beil)
For Maini, who comes from an Indian industrialist family, Reva was still a success: in 2010 he sold the company to the Indian vehicle manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra, which formed his electric car division from it. Seven years later, the founder started the second attempt in the industry with Sun Mobility. “We were ahead of our time with Reva, but what I learned is helping me now in the second phase of my career,” he says, adding: “Actually, it’s not a career, it’s more of a vision.”
And while he was ridiculed for a long time for the vision of electric mobility in India, he is gradually cracking the mass market: sales of electric vehicles in India have risen sharply over the past 24 months. In the most recent fiscal year, which ended at the end of March, around 1.2 million electric vehicles were registered in the country, according to data from the Indian think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water. Compared to two years ago, the number has increased by almost 1000 percent.
Electrical industry relies on mopeds and rickshaws
In contrast to Western markets, however, cars play almost no role in the traffic turnaround in Asia’s third-largest economy: almost all sales are accounted for by electric mopeds, motorcycles and rickshaws. According to government forecasts in New Delhi, 80 percent of vehicles in this segment will be electric by 2030, compared to 30 percent of passenger cars.
In view of the growth prospects, Maini is also concentrating on two-wheelers and electric buses. His start-up does not offer battery solutions for cars – also because battery replacement in cars would be much more difficult to implement and car batteries differ more.
>> Read also: This country will soon have more inhabitants than China – and the masses can afford an electric vehicle
For the two-wheelers, Sun Mobility uses a standard battery that can be used in vehicles from different manufacturers. To ensure interchangeability, the company works with ten manufacturers, including Hero Electric, one of the market leaders. The start-up is also collaborating with Bosch – the company acquired a 26 percent stake in Sun Mobility two and a half years ago – in the further development of its battery technology.
The company’s customers can currently exchange batteries at 370 charging stations – the network is currently densest in the capital Delhi, where, according to the company, there is a contact point for fresh batteries every two kilometers. According to this, Sun Mobility exchanges around 20,000 batteries a day across the country – with around 12,000 customers most recently.
Maini is hoping for rapid growth: at the end of March he reached an agreement with the delivery service Zomato to supply 50,000 delivery vehicles with his battery service. He is aiming for one million vehicles on his platform by 2026.
Cooperation with Shell, competition from Singapore
In order to be able to realize the plans, however, he needs significantly more than one billion dollars in additional capital – among other things for the purchase of the necessary batteries. He cites an IPO in the coming years as one of the ways to get the money. There are also partnerships with international corporations.
At the beginning of the year, Sun Mobility announced its intention to develop the battery swap market in the Philippines together with the oil company Shell. The company said it was very confident that it would be able to develop a practical and economical offer for the Philippines together with Sun Mobility.
Maini sees great potential in international expansion in other emerging and developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But Sun Mobility is not alone in this. Taiwanese battery swap provider Gogoro is also currently working on expanding in the Philippines and has Indonesia in its sights as well.
MO Batteries from Singapore plans to enter the Malaysian market. But Maini doesn’t fear the competition: “Globally, we’re talking about a gigantic market,” he says. “There will inevitably be several providers that exist side by side.”
More: India’s Rise – Why the country can now only jeopardize its own success