EV start-ups feel the spark of recovery, kick-start post-pandemic biz plans

Business Standard EV start-ups feel the spark of recovery, kick-start post-pandemic biz plans

Though electric vehicles are clearly the flavour of these climate-change challenged times, Covid-19 infected sales, just as it did with conventional automobiles. This pandemicinduced slowdown, when business growth was virtually zero, presented challenges not just for e-vehicle makers but also the many start-ups that had developed within the ecosystem to provide a range of services — from funding and research facilities to taxi fleet operations and battery-charging services. How are they doing with the recovery?

“The past 12 months have posed the toughest challenges for the entire urban mobility sector. It challenged the viability and health of urban mobility across the sector irrespective

of the segment, whether B2C or the scooter segment or ride-sharing. In spite of that, all of us have risen both individually and collectively,” said Sanjay Krishnan, founder of Lithium Urban Technologies.

His company provides EV fleet management service. The Bengaluru-based company, which was set up in 2015, saw absolutely no business during the lockdown months of April and May but a small uptick with the gradual unlocking, launched new products in the market. The company also looked beyond city transport and went into new cities and services such as inter-city and airport services. The company has clocked 150 million ekms with 10 million ekms during the crucial Covid-19 period.

Though Krishnan said his company was well-capitalised and could weather the challenge, “at one stage, volumes for an extended period of time were almost zero but you had costs and bills”. This called for structural changes, he said. “We continued to invest, create and innovate during the period,” he added.

There’s some distance to comfort yet, however. Even today, Krishnan said, demand is of the “start-stop-start-stop” variety as different places open up but then governments clamp down. “But overall, the path is upwards. In the next six months, demand should be back somewhat to pre-Covid levels. The first quarter of the next calendar year, it should be fine though it will be at a different pace,” he added.

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