New Delhi: Electric two and three-wheeler sales, which hit yet another high in November, are being driven primarily by logistics fleet operators that are ramping up their fleet to meet rising demand from ecommerce and food delivery firms, industry officials said.
For Hero Electric, which claims to be the market leader in the business-to-business (B2B) segment, sales to ecommerce logistics operators now account for 23% of its total sales, up from 14% a year ago, company CEO Sohinder Gill told ET.
At least 80,000 electric two-wheelers have been added to the country’s last mile two-wheeler delivery fleet of 450,000-500,000 vehicles this year, according to industry estimates.
Electric two-wheelers in the price range of Rs 80,000 to Rs 1.1 lakh are most popular for logistical operations and last-mile delivery, industry insiders said.
Greaves Electric Mobility, which sells EVs under the Ampere brand, has seen a five times growth in offtake of electric two-wheelers to ecommerce, logistics, and FMCG companies, its executive director and CEO Sanjay Behl said.
Currently, B2B sales account for 10% of Greaves’ total sales, up 5% a year back. The company has so far sold 6,000 electric vehicles this fiscal.
Despite tech companies like ecommerce giant Amazon shutting down various businesses, many of them continue to double down on converting their delivery fleet to electric.
Multiple logistics executives told ET that Amazon is prioritising more orders with fleet operators that have electric vehicles on their fleet.
“Converting to electric does not involve any costs for any ecommerce companies; in fact, it helps reduce their operating costs,” said a logistics company executive.
ET reviewed the price list of Amazon, which shows the payout for EVs to be lower than that of petrol or diesel vehicles.
To meet the demand, electric fleet providers such as Zypp, Electrev, Zyngo and Yulu Bike are ramping up their capacity and increasing orders to EV makers.
Amit Gupta, CEO and cofounder of Yulu Bikes, told ET that it is adding 500 vehicles per week now and increase it to 2,400 EVs per week by the end of the year. The Bengaluru-based company had raised $77 million in September.
Zypp Electric, which purchases vehicles from companies such as Hero Electric and Kinetic, is adding about 1,000 electric two-wheelers per month and plans to increase that to 3,000-4,000 per month in the next two years.
“Some of the EV makers that we work with have been focusing a lot on B2B business recently,” said Akash Gupta, cofounder and CEO of Zypp Electric. A lot of demand today in the EV segments, especially when it comes to electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers, is driven by the logistics market, he said.
Zypp Electric also started operating a fleet of three-wheeler trucks six months back and has about 100 vehicles currently.
While India is still at an early stage of EV adoption, electric two- and three-wheelers are demonstrating some tangible potential in the last-mile transportation ecosystem, said Manu Kohli, cofounder of Electrev Mobility, which provides last mile delivery services to ecommerce and FMCG companies.
Six months ago, Electrev started with 300 electric vehicles and it now plans to add another 2,000 EVs to its fleet. “As our main customers push aggressively for e vehicles in the fleet, we have been increasing our procurement of e-vehicles,” Kohli said.
Prateek Rao, founder of Zyngo, said the company has created a fleet of 1,200 electric vehicles in a short span. “By March 2023 we will add another 1,800 units, taking it to 3,000 vehicles,” he said.
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If October set a monthly record of 115,861 EV sales, the numbers this month have already crossed 99,000 units, as per data from government website Vahan that tracks vehicle registrations.