GreenRick sees production at 1,000-unit/month
The low-income E-Rickshaw operators need bank financing for they have the potential to create 20 million units in sales a year.
One of the hurdles in the market is the absence of bank financing for the traditional rickshaw operators, who are typically low-income workers, said Shishir Agrawal, the managing director of ShiganeVoltz Ltd, the parent company of GreenRick, an e-rick manufacturer.
If this financing issue is resolved, he believes it could be possible for his Gurgaon-company to produce 1,000 e-rickshaw a month.
Agrawal sees the potential of 20 million sales on an annual basis.
Agrawal’s market views were published in “COVID-19 Impact on the E-Rickshaw Market Potential in India: Estimating Demand for E-Rickshaw and its Components by 2024-25” report by ResearchAndMarkets.com released on 5 June 2020.
As per a report of the Centre of Civil Society (CCS), the number of E-Rickshaws has risen from 4,000 in 2010 to more than 1 Lakh, but a large percentage of such vehicles are still unregistered.
Urbanization is at its peak in India. The introduction of Metro in the last decade has made commuting easier for longer distances.
However, E-Rickshaw can provide last mile connectivity and hence buoyed by the success of E-Rickshaw service in Noida and Ghaziabad, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) extended the service to commuters in the national capital.
The specially designed E-Rickshaws with covered cabin and full front windscreen will provide the last mile connectivity within an area of 3- to 4-km around Metro stations. They are also enabled with CCTV and GPS availability.
The facility of E-Rickshaws at the stations in Gurugram and Faridabad will also get operational very shortly by another operator. On successful implementation of the E-Rickshaw services in the NCR region, services in a similar format would be replicated in Delhi subject to the feasibility.
According to the consulting firm, A.T. Kearney, around 11,000 new E-Rickshaws are sold on a monthly basis in the country. The opportunity is so big that many start-ups are venturing into this space.
SmartE, a ride-hailing service that employs over 800 E-Rickshaws around New Delhi, believes when looking at electric mobility, the focus should be on whether the government is enabling products that are designed for the future.
Ola, India’s largest ride-hailing startups, has plans to employ 10,000 E-Rickshaws in its fleet by April 2019. One of the biggest setbacks to the growth of EVs in India is the dearth of charging and battery swap stations.
India had just 425 public charging stations in 2017.
The Government and private initiatives are boosting the number of public charging stations to 2,800 by 2022, according to BNEF. In 2017, there were just 425 charging stations.
However, some companies are not waiting for the government and are starting to build their own infrastructure.
SmartE and Delhi Metro Rail Corp has struck a deal to provide charging points for E-Rickshaws near 10 stations, with plans to cover all 214 stations by the end of 2020.
COVID-19 has a devastating effect on global economies.
The transportation sector has been one of the primary victims of COVID-19. From rickshaw pullers to airlines, all have been affected economically by the pandemic.
So, how till it impacts the e-rickshaw segment is the key question to be asked. E-rickshaw demand may or may not be hit but the e-rickshaw driver’s availability constraint may impact the near-term demand, according to the report.
Beginning from human-powered cycle rickshaws to auto-rickshaws, the era is now drifting towards most recent modification E-Rickshaws. These battery-operated three-wheelers are undoubtedly an integral part of the transport eco-system in entire Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Dehradun, Udaipur, Indore, Patna, Bhagalpur and Ranchi among other urban regions.
E-Rickshaws dovetail beautifully as the last mile public conveyance with zero pollution in this entire equation, said the report.
E-Rickshaws approved by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have a maximum width of 1-metre and a maximum length of 2.8 meters and are permitted to carry four passengers. fiinews.com
