E-commerce, FMCG demand for EVs in superfast lane
Hindustan Unilever, Swiggy, Coca-Cola, Zomato, Amul, Flipkart, BigBasket and Bisleri are among the larger companies switching to EVs to service consumers and retailers.
«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
