Ampere Vehicles, a wholly-owned electric mobility subsidiary of Greaves Cotton, recently said that it had inked a pact with Bigbasket to provide electric scooters for delivery purposes in key cities, including Chennai. Bigbasket operates fleets of delivery teams across 26 cities in India.
At the Taste of Coimbatore event held here last month, organisers used e-scooters for mobility inside the 4.5-acre venue.
While there is a big push from the government on e-mobility and manufacturers are looking at different models of vehicles, one of the potential segments seems to be vehicles used for delivery purposes by industries and trade.
P. Sanjeev, Chief Operating Officer of Ampere Electric Vehicles, told The Hindu the company had tie-ups with 20 institutions in the State, including textiles mills and schools, that used different types of e-vehicles. “Many of them use three-wheelers and there is a very encouraging response. The advantage that e-vehicles bring to the table is cost economics especially when used within the premises. We can customise vehicles according to the need of the sector that we are catering to. In e-vehicles, there is a greater scope for customisation,” he says.
“Even when customised, when the manufacturers follow all the prescribed standards, the customers get the government subsidy,” he points out.
Textile mills initially started using e-vehicles in the spinning department a few years ago to reduce the fatigue for workers, as they need to move around a lot for checking the spinning process. Though not many mills have adopted e-mobility for internal use, some of them do use the vehicles in the godowns and packaging departments to move goods. The adoption depends on the cost involved and facilities and space available within a mill, says an industry source.
While the manufacturers and dealers feel that e-vehicles are a great option for delivery personnel, trade and industry here are of the view that there are challenges that need to be overcome.
“The preference is still for the moped and not even the regular scooters for delivery purposes,” points out one of the hoteliers. “Multiple hands use a vehicle that a hotel has for delivery or to pick up goods. What matters is the robustness of the vehicle and the confidence of the user,” adds Jegan Damodarasamy, Executive Director of Sree Annapoorna Sree Gowrishankar Hotels. It will take some more time of the employees to get confidence in the vehicle, when its usage and technology develop further. They (employees) should be comfortable using the e-vehicles and only then will hotels start switching over to e-vehicles, he says.
V. Lakshminarayanasamy, president of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, says while the scope is high for use of e-vehicles by industries and trade, there are issues. Availability of battery charging points within the city, life of batteries and the weight that the vehicles can handle matter for more industries to switch over. For use within an industry, the vehicle should be able to carry maximum 500 kg and for outside use, it should be minimum one tonne, he says.
“In China, e-cycles were introduced nearly three decades ago. But we need to study the use in industries and for delivery purposes,” he says.
Domestic manufacture of e-vehicles is just picking up and a few companies have announced plans for e-autos too. Only when there is continuous support and facilities locally for servicing of the vehicles, will the customers get confidence in these vehicles. Since batteries constitute significant portion of the cost of an e-vehicle, the life of batteries, charging time, and charging facilities will determine the success of the use of e-vehicles, he adds.