Snap-E Cabs eyes 5 new cities in next 3 yrs, plans to have fleet of 5,000 electric vehicles

Few months ago, Kolkata-headquartered Snap-E Cabs has started providing a reliable eco-friendly public electric transport service that allows people to travel safely, without any delays at an affordable price. They are focused to embrace the change and getting ready for tomorrow. The company already has a fleet of 400 vehicles and is already on an expansion mode in terms of moving into newer geographies and increasing the number of vehicle. A recent survey report suggests that one of the major reasons why car buyers have been hesitant to opt for electric vehicles has been the low accessibility to charging stations. To solve the issue, even by private car owners, Snap-E is in the process of opening their charging stations at a nominal fee, jointly with the West Bengal government. That’s not all. The company has signed an MOU with Tata Motors to ensure uninterrupted delivery of electric vehicles. Speaking to Bizz Buzz exclusively, Mayank Bindal, Co-founder and CEO, Snap-E outlines their ambitious plans

What prompted you to get into this business?

I used to get deeply annoyed by the refusal and multiple questions (such as "Where would you like to be dropped off?" or "How would you like to pay?") from app cab (cab aggregator) drivers before agreeing to the journey. I was also annoyed by the fact that the price surged almost throughout the day for one reason or another. Then in many cases, the quality of maintenance and other services, I felt, were not up to the mark. So ,thought of starting something that would offer passengers safe, secured, affordable, hassle free and free from such annoying experiences. I always wanted to focus on quality of services and not on numbers. I wanted to focus on eco-friendliness and sustainability factors. Thus, Snap-E came into being. Snap-E is a reliable, eco-friendly public electric transport service that allows people to travel safely, without delays, and at an affordable price.

When did you roll out your services and how many vehicles do you have currently?

Snap-E cab service was rolled out from the stable of EC Wheels India Private Limited, a subsidiary of Kolkata-headquartered Steelman Telecom Limited in August, 2022 and at present, we have a fleet of 400 vehicles. Currently, we are following B2B model, focusing on corporate, organisations, hotels, Airport Authority of India, who are keen on bringing down carbon footprint. We promise carbon foot-print reduction by 80 per cent and fossil fuel saving by 60 per cent. We are focused to embrace the change and getting ready for tomorrow.

What are your USPs or advantages? Why should passengers opt for your vehicle and service?

All our drivers are thoroughly verified, professionally trained and experienced. Snap E has a no cancellation policy, ensuring that you have seamless experience always. Our rides are extremely affordable with no price surges, causing no hassles to our valued customers. Every vehicle comes fitted with AIS140 Certified GPS tracking IoT device and a physical SOS button. We offer convenient and flexible payment method. We offer zero emissions and zero noise pollution. One can breathe easy knowing all rides are in our newest electric cab vehicles positively improving the quality of air in the city.

Have you charted out your future growth path? What are the plans like?

We are working on a MoU with the West Bengal government for a large fleet of EVs. We are also in talks with them for putting up charging stations in the central business district of the city, where the state government will give us space, subsidy and the required licence and we will put up charging station. During the day time, it can be used by others and our vehicles will use the charging station during the night. Charging costs will also have to be brought down. The state transport department has taken a very positive stance. We will eventually also have to convert charging stations into fast charging ones. We will have at least 150 DC and 700 AC charging stations in and around Kolkata.

We have also lined up plans to move to at least 5 more cities in the next three years. We are mostly looking at tier-II cities like Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Indore, Ahmedabad, and Nagpur. We are also assessing and evaluating metro markets including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. Immediately, our next port of call will be Bhubaneswar, where we will start with 100 vehicles with charging facilities. Our target is to have 300 cars in a year there. Our plan is to have a fleet of 1500-2000 vehicles over the next two-three years and then operate a fleet of 5,000 electric vehicles providing cab services in east India alone. Mind you that we are not an aggregator. Our vehicles are owned by us.

How would you financially back up your growth or expansion plans?

It would be through a prudent mix of debt and equity. We are looking at “Green Funds” of the banks. We are also looking at VC funds and angel investors. The funds, so raised will be utilised in fleet expansions, moving into new cities and putting up a full-fledged training institute (we already have a small one) for chauffeurs, where we will assess their physical abilities, impart trainings on actual driving, rules and regulations, behavioural aspects and so on. Proper examination will also be conducted. One of our key objectives is to train and hire more and more women chauffeurs. We already have a decent number of women drivers and our plan is that at least 30 per cent of our drivers should be women. We offer them decent salaries and slab-wise token incentives.

Any other innovative idea at the back of your mind?

Although it is at a very preliminary or drawing broad stage, we have plans to add a dash of tourism and ethnic culture to our service. We have discussed this with the state transport department also. We are working on and evaluating the scope of introducing a packaged tour of Kolkata on our e-vehicle with guided tour and stop-overs at interesting places, places of local gastronomical delights, cultural extravaganza and so on. If it clicks in Kolkata, the same model can be replicated elsewhere as well.