Startups pin hopes on booming EV mkt

Electric Vehicles in India are on a fast-track to popularity with entrepreneurs investing into different segments of the industry. At the 11th Electric Vehicle Expo in New Delhi, vendors, businessmen and young innovators thronged the event to experience the indigenous EV and its allied products built in with the vision of Make in India.

Mayank Jain, 29, the youngest entrepreneur at the expo here at Pragati Maidan, is the founder and CEO of E-Fill Electric company, which has built three-wheelers in two segments; Muv-er, a passenger vehicle, and Haul-er, a heavy load vehicle. An expert in auto wheel Research and Development (R&D), Mayank previously worked with automobile giants such as Honda before launching his own venture back in 2018.

According to Mayank, he gathered a team of 18 members R&D specialists from companies like Yamaha, Tata Motors and Mahindra to develop his patented designs and conducted a year-long research and survey to understand the market needs in the three-wheeler segment.

"Almost a year-long preparation has gone into building the two vehicles. We surveyed around 500 autorickshaw drivers to know their expectations into an EV vehicle. Thus, we built in critical designs within these vehicles such as motorbreak, wiring harness to make it safer and more reliant. Our vehicles can also drive up on an elevated surface without the concern of rolling back due to the escalated height of the road or weight of end-products at the loading point," Mayank told Bizz Buzz.

As of today, Mayank's primary revenue generation model is offering design services, including research and development of products, to a US-based client from where he earns approximately half a million dollars annually. The earnings are pooled into building and manufacturing innovations built by his company.

"We are not looking for any seed-funding as of now, although many BPOs and overseas companies have approached us for the same. We are utilising our earnings into funding our manufacturing and assembling line. There is enough potential in the market for us to scale up the sales figure," Mayank added.

Tapping into the potential of EVs in the Indian market, Mayank stated that exporting the current designs maybe on the cards to South African countries.

"The response to our EVs here at the expo has been overwhelming. With the requirement of last mile delivery services and rise in prices of fuel acting as a deterrent, we are confident of a rise in preference of EVs in the next couple of years," he added. With less than 80 participants this year, the expo was dominated by the two-wheelers and three-wheelers segment, products such as charging stations, lithium-ion batteries and LED lights for vehicles.

The entrepreneur estimates the production capacity to increase by 200 units/month in the next six months with an aim to sell his three-wheelers to different OEMs. Similar to Mayank's story is Priya Bhalla's, Chief Operating Officer, Supreme Vehicles, the only female entrepreneur at the Expo.

Bhalla's vision of including women into last mile delivery platform is now close to reality as she launched gearless two-wheelers at the event.

"As of now we haven't specifically roped in any women (auto) dealers. But I'm hoping that convenient design of our EVs will be easier for women drives to operate the vehicle. We are already in talks with Amazon and Flipkart for FMCG delivery collaboration," Bhalla said.

Similar to Mayank's vision, Bhalla is also primarily aiming for B2B industry segment over B2C.

"We already have received pre-order of 50,000 units of our two-wheelers by Diwali this year. And to meet this demand, we have two manufacturing units; one in Gurgaon that has a capacity of 300-500 units/month and the other in Gujarat with a manufacturing capacity of 1000 units/shift," she added.