ev india

On the show, we rarely have the same guest visit twice. Today, we talk to a very special person who's coming on the show for the third time: none other than Vasudha Madhavan, CEO & Founder at Ostara Advisors. She is an investment banker who helps facilitate investments as well as M&A transactions in the Electric Vehicle Space. In this special episode, we talk about the Funding Winter, major deals this year from January to August, the categories that are doing well, and much more.

The motorcycling spirit is a passion that runs deep. It's a love for the open road and the freedom it brings. It's the feeling of the wind against your skin and the rush of adrenaline in your heart. So, what would happen when a hardcore biker desires to challenge the age-old industry and aspires to build one of the most impressive motorcycles to come out of India? Today, we speak with Ranjita Ravi, the co-founder and CEO at Orxa Energies, who is building Mantis, an all-electric performance bike, and much more. You don't want to miss this one. 

The EV revolution that we are witnessing globally right now has demonstrated that legacy players have been repeatedly caught off guard as new technologies were adopted earlier than they had anticipated. Whilst General Motors and Ford were sleeping, Tesla changed how people drive in America. Legacy car makers globally, even the super green European ones, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the clean mobility era, more than 10 years after Tesla launched their first commercial car.

In most sub-sectors within the clean mobility sector, the same pattern is evident as well. Legacy lead-acid battery makers stood on the sidelines as CATL, Panasonic, and a myriad of other small startup companies led the race in lithium-ion battery adoption globally. Typically, legacy players have waited because they did not understand the technology and decided to move only when new technology started to become a threat to their existing business.

But in this brave new world, that might be just waiting too long and being caught in the pincers of a Kodak or a Xerox moment. In this episode, we deep dive into the battery sector to understand why this pattern of legacy players taking their time keeps repeating itself. We speak to one of the big daddies of the battery world in India, who also dominates their sector in many of the countries they export to, and who, unlike most legacy players, is moving fast to learn, adopt, and dominate the new technology wins that are raging across their business.

Today, we welcome the Executive Director of Amara Raja Batteries, Vikramadithya Gourineni, on this deep-dive journey.

In this episode, we hit the road and have a conversation with Visakh Sasikumar, an entrepreneur who co-founded Fyn, a startup  focused on end-to-end micro-electric mobility. Their approach involves leveraging data to enhance productivity during the last mile of delivery. Visakh, an alumnus of IIT Madras, envisions making last-mile zero-emission mobility more efficient through complete digitization. By blending technology with execution, he aims to facilitate rapid scale-up. Currently, he is actively involved in building India's largest vertically integrated electric vehicle ecosystem platform, catering to both last-mile logistics and commute applications.

Energizing India podcast is powered by Ador Digatron Pvt Ltd 

Over the last two years of this program, we have had discussions with industry leaders and key protagonists from the electric and clean mobility sector in India. We have gained insightful knowledge about what makes this industry tick and why some companies are successful while others struggle to find a breakthrough. Often, there have been golden nuggets on how they continued to find success in a market full of uncertainty and adventure in these early years of energy transition.

During our deep dives in this program, we occasionally have special moments like today where we get to chat with a super user of EVs in India. We uncover the perspectives of the most important person in the entire electric mobility value chain - the driver of the vehicle.

Today, we had a conversation with Priyans Muraka, an EV superuser who owns an MG ZS EV and has completed more than 20,000 KMs using it on work trips across India. We discussed why he chose the MG, his experience with not just fast chargers, but also the various charge point operators, and the pain points of early adopting EV users. Priyans also has his own blogs on using his EV across India and brought a wealth of information for CPOs and EV car manufacturers.

Experience With EVs - http://expwithevs.in/ 

In this episode, we’ve got to do something that is very unique and not normally possible. We were fortunate to have four opinionators- all CEOs of charge point operations companies in India, who visited our Artemis studio on the very same day. They were in Pune to be a part of the energizing India summit, an annual event held every November bringing together key CEOs and decision-makers from the entire clean mobility sector in India. It was one of the most special episode so far! 

On 2nd January 2021, as the world was still grappling with the strict Corona lockdowns, limited flights, and hotels being open, we at Energizing India had the opportunity to travel to Delhi to meet with Reji Pillai, President of India Smart Grid Forum. When we asked Reji what is the route to the quickest adoption of clean mobility in India, he responded with amazing clarity. A strong government policy focused on converting intra-city buses from ICE to fully electric. Reji suggested a government mandate and ban on new ICE buses for public transport, but in two years since that conversation, what has happened is classically Indian. There was no government ban and no overt government policy to change all public transport to fully electric in cities. But as everything beautiful and magical in India, it just started to happen.  

Today most Indian megacities like Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, amongst others already run more than a hundred electric buses each as part of their public transport system. The miracle happened while the rest of the industry was tracking the launch of the Kia EV6, the Mercedes EQS, and the Ather scooters. Quietly and all of a sudden people in the big cities of India are traveling in greater comfort. Air-conditioned buses that are safer and don't pollute the air while millions commute to and back from work every day.  

So today we decided to focus on this public intracity bus sector, and we spoke with Ravi Panga, CEO of the Causis Group. A very interesting company that has acquired an electric bus tech company in Europe and whose electric bus operates in Kyrgyzstan, Mauritius, and even in Qatar for the FIFA world cup and now the new Bombay double-decker electric bus that has us all so very excited.

Over the last 2 years, our program has focused relentlessly on the clean MOBILITY sector in India. So, for this episode, we decide to take a break and examine the clean ENERGY sector instead. Today, we feature a conversation with the CEO of one of Schneider Electric's companies in India.  The conversation proved incredibly refreshing not only because we spoke about the energy transition that we are all witnessing across our daily lives and how Lithium would play a predominant role in the future of static energy applications, but also because we had the privilege to speak with a global women leader of Indian origin who has spent the bulk of her career in leadership roles in North America and Australia and who is now is back in India on a new business and technological challenge. Today we speak with Preeti BAJAJ, CEO & MD of Luminous Power Technologies (P) Ltd

Energizing India Podcast is an Ador Digatron production.

This episode proved very interesting as we returned to the charge Point operations sector to speak to one of Europe's largest CPOs, Fortum.  

Following its successful domination of the European market, the company is focusing on expanding its network in India, the world's fourth-largest automobile market. Fortum is among those who believe that infrastructure is required to conclude the Chicken and Egg narrative and facilitate the transition from ICE to electric vehicles.

We speak to none other than Awadhesh JHA, Executive Director for Fortum Charge & Drive India. 

The Indian electric vehicle ecosystem is perhaps the most interesting case study demonstrating how the evolution of the clean mobility sector in developing economies differs from mature economies.

While the Electric 2-wheeler industry is experiencing breathtaking growth, particularly due to the impact of electric last-mile delivery services, sales of electric cars were lagging. This is starting to change. 17,802 cars were sold last year. of which 15,198 were Tata EVs.

A local Indian OEM leads the race over global automotive giants. What gives? Has the world changed whilst we were sleeping during the corona lockdowns?

Early adopting EV owners have created EV communities to support each other with learnings and hacks. In this conversation, we speak with members of one such EV user community - the Tata Nexon user group, who talked about the bitter & sweet experiences of using their TATA Nexon EVs. We discuss the cost of ownership in relation to the cost of acquisition. 

We also learned that today, Made In India vehicles can stand on their own feet when compared to other vehicles produced globally and win the race of customer delight.

In this episode,  we speak with one of the most interesting startups started in South India. A fast-growing charge point operations company, in fact, given its pace of growth, the company can perhaps no longer be called a startup. Zeon Charging is rapidly building the infrastructure needed to enable the EV Revolution in India. We speak with Karthikeyan Palanisamy, CEO and Co-founder of Zeon Charging.   

In this episode, we go back to the OEM sector, but we examine electric cars from a very different and unique perspective as we are featuring a bold and adventurous company that is designing an Indian-made premium EV that will only be available to luxury hotels and tourism fleets. The company is also designing and will manufacture its own battery packs. Already funded by Groupe Eren of France, their first batch of 2,500 limited edition cars will only be available in Bangalore and Delhi as a start.  

The car is said to be powered by a single electric motor, that it claims will go from 0-100 km/hr in 5.4 seconds. Energized by a 96-kWh battery pack which it says will have a range of 500 km. We speak today with Dhawal Khullar, Co-Founder & CTO of Pravaig Dynamics. 

The automotive industry is going through a revolution. India has already established aggressive emission reduction objectives, and the vehicle sector is one critical area where emissions can be dramatically reduced. As EV adoption increases, the attention is shifting to building the infrastructure, such as charging as well as battery swapping stations. It’s clear after the recent budget that the government aims to establish battery-swap service standards, focusing on electric two and three-wheelers that ferry customers and cater to last-mile delivery. 

In this episode, we explore the intricacies of battery swapping, and government incentives and arrive at a conclusion on its role in accelerating EV adoption in India. 

In this episode, we go back to the OEM sector and speak to none other than Uday NARANG , Founder & CEO of Omega Seiki Mobility. Uday is nurturing this company to become the Tesla of the east for cargo EVs. Driven by data and analytics and a relentless focus on quality, Omega Seiki Mobility has become synonymous with India’s sustainability solutions for last-mile delivery. Uday is having a wonderful time making the rest of the industry uncomfortable. Listen here to find out why!  

Produced by Ador Digatron

In this episode, we go back to the charging infrastructure sector and speak to a unique new startup charge point operator co-founded by a team of people who bring a myriad of experiences from the consulting, advertising, manufacturing, and even the film industry. The one thing that this team has in common is a passion for clean mobility and cleaner air in our cities. 

Their operating model for charging infrastructure is different as well, as they use their chargers as outdoor digital advertising opportunities, generating alternative revenue streams for the business. We speak today with two of the co-founders of Sunfuel Electric, Gul Panag and Sudhir Nayak who together with their team through in-depth usage accessibility and ergonomics research have designed what could become one of the most unique chargers designs in the country.

Produced by Ador Digatron 

During the last 18 months on this program, we have covered conversations with the entire EV ecosystem in India including regulators, grid operators, vehicle manufacturers, battery manufacturers and charge point operators. What has become very evident is that the various elements of the EV ecosystem dance to their own tune and are not yet at the point of working in cohesion. For example, the reason it takes so long to charge an EV today is because we need the battery manufacturers, BMS software developers, vehicle OEMs and charger manufacturers to all dance together in a delicate symphony, in order to design a vehicle powered with batteries and managed by BMS that would safely take a super fast charge. 

This very unique problem is what a Bangalore-based start-up, Exponent Energy, is furiously working to address. In this episode we speak with Co-founder Arun Vinayak on how Exponent plans to change the world of super fast charging.

 

Unlike ICE vehicles, where the ecosystem was built over the last 100 years, the Electric Vehicle sector is still waiting for all parts of the ecosystem to talk to each other. Until that happens EV drivers and fleet owners will not have a seamless mobility experience. We often hear of the concept of range anxiety, in order to address this we don't just need more chargers or charging stations on the road, instead, the entire ecosystem will need to dance in harmony for the end-user, the power grid, the charging infrastructure, the charging protocol and standards that are implemented, ChargePoint operations the possibility of customers roaming between CPO's and then, of course, the GSM connectivity and paywall software operations.

We have a chicken and egg conundrum today in India with each part of the ecosystem making leaps forward, but in isolation rather than in harmony. Having said that an important layer addressing range anxiety today is in fact the size and the reliability of the ChargePoint Operator. The CPO sector has seen a significant amount of investment in the last 12 months in India, with numerous fast-charging stations being installed around the highways in the country. This is just the beginning; the best is yet to come.

Today we welcome back the CEO of one such ChargePoint Operator Kartikey Hariyani, Managing Director of ChargeZone, who has visited our studios only a year ago but today manages a business that is radically different from the one we have examined at that time. 

During the recent annual budget presented by the finance minister in February 2022, she made firm policy announcements on battery swapping infrastructure and it's evident that policy objectives are clearly towards massive swift to clean mobility by 2030. We already have determined that the present buying cycle for ICE vehicles is likely the last one where EVs marks the logical procurement choice and that when the vehicles bought this year come up for a replacement in 3 or 5 years; the natural buying decision will likely be an EV rather than an ICE vehicle unless the EV industry itself messes up the golden opportunity presented to it.

As of February 2022, India has a few million electric Rickshaws of varying battery technologies including lead-acid and lithium-ion chemistries. There are some 200 thousand electric scooters, a few thousand electric buses, but less than 20,000 personal electric cars. The passenger car segment, in particular, has a low level of penetration in India with only a few OEMs offering electric vehicles. New launches planned in 2022 this year includes at the top-end the Mini Cooper Electric, the Volvo XC40 Electric, and the Mercedes-Benz EQA. At the other end of the spectrum, TATA, and MG plan to launch new electric vehicles models in the 10 to 15 lakhs price spectrum, but the choice for buyers for electric cars continues to be very limited and the disconnect is looming. So, what's the go? What is the industry doing wrong? What is hampering OEMs from keeping up with the hype that they themselves have created?

To help examine this subject, today we speak with Cyrus Dhabar, Head of Content of Powerdrift; India's biggest automotive media house.

Energizing India Podcast is powered by Ador Digatron Pvt Ltd

Connect with us:- 

Website: https://energizingindia.tv 

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/13270395 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdorDigatron 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdorDigatron

Around the world, the sustainable energy revolution is rapidly gaining traction and zero-emission mobility is now a stated target for many economies as well as vehicle manufacturers. In India, the Electric Vehicle sector is still in a nascent stage but going at an astonishing pace. This is facilitated by the union and state governments implementing forward-looking EV policies addressing regulations, rules, standards as well as providing financial incentives.

India's electric vehicle financing market is expected to be about 150 Billion US dollars by 2030, which is nearly 80% of the country's present retail vehicle loan volume. This opens a lot of room for a new financing methodology and for companies in the vehicle financing sector to understand and underwrite EV ownership at lease financing. Beyond the simple loans though there is the opportunity to finance both start-ups as well legacy industry players for a host of opportunities within the ecosystem, such as, for example, battery manufacturing, battery swap technology, various software applications for charge-point operations, interstate roaming, integration of payment apps and even charger manufacturing. Significant risk-related investments by venture capital funds and private equity players are going to be required in each element of the EV ecosystem in India in order to ensure that move to zero-emission mobility is not constrained by various bottlenecks over the next 10 years.

In this episode with Vasudha Madhavan Founder at Ostara Advisors, we look in-depth at the impact that the finance sector in India will have on the electric mobility sector and how it needs to be a crucial pillar of the very foundation of India's move to zero-emission mobility. 

Energizing India Podcast is produced by Ador Digatron Pvt Ltd

Connect with us:- 

Website: https://energizingindia.tv 

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/13270395

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdorDigatron

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/AdorDigatron

Today our show meets someone very interesting as we feature a senior policymaker and regulator for the transport sector in one of India's most progressive states, Kerala. In this very engaging conversation, we cover how the great CORONA lockdowns impacted mobility and the economy of the state. We also discuss why Kerala has some of the most progressive EV implementation policies in India and how the state expects to achieve its target of 1 million vehicles converted to Zero-Emission Mobility within the next 3 years. We also talked about why Kerela has embarked on hydrogen mobility for public transportation including buses and boat ferries.
We talked today with the Principal Secretary Transport for the state of Kerala Mr Jyotilal who has had a distinguished career across India as part of the Indian Administrative Service or IAS and has a reputation for pushing the boundaries of what is possible on all fronts, policy, regulation as well as technology and it happens.

Energizing India Podcast is produced by Ador Digatron Pvt Ltd

Connect with us:- 

Website: https://energizingindia.tv 

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/company/13270395

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdorDigatron

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/AdorDigatron