Sahara India has forayed into electric vehicles (EVs) by introducing a platform under the brand name ‘Sahara Evols’ to capitalise on the demand for clean mobility in the country.
The platform includes a range of electric scooters, motorcycles, three-wheelers and cargo carriers developed and supplied by select partners as well as a service and battery charging infrastructure.
The company has also started swapping stations where EV owners can swap a fully-charged battery with a drained one.
Starting from Lucknow, Sahara would establish the EV charging and vehicle service ecosystem in tier II and tier III cities, mostly in North India, by the end of this financial year, in a phased manner.
The company has plans to go pan-India with the EV platform in the next financial year, top officials said.
“Basically, we have started a platform for electric vehicles. Like Ola and Uber do not own any vehicles, we don’t own any EV manufacturing facility or the EVs. We are working with various partners who are manufacturing and supplying EVs as per our specifications and these will be sold, serviced and charged through our platform,” said Aditya Banerjee, CEO, Sahara Evols.
“This is an asset-light business and we have made not much investment,” Dr. Banerjee said.
He said the vehicles run on advanced electric motors and drivetrain designed and developed by German engineering. The vehicles are powered by dry, lithium-ion batteries which have a longer life. These batteries are fast charging, with up to 40% charging achieved in one hour which can provide enough power to cover between 55 km – 150 km distance on a single charge, depending on the type and category, the company said. “The cost of driving these vehicles, on an average, can go to as low as 20 paise per kilometer against the cost of ₹2 per kilometer for petrol vehicles,” the company said.
Dr Banerjee said each city, where the EVs are sold, will have wide network of service centres and there will be facilities like delivery of a charged battery on call.
The company had already started developing the service set-up in Lucknow district, its first target market, with the setting up of 57 service centres as well as providing training to the technicians for electric vehicles.
Sahara Evols on Tuesday handed over keys to 101 inaugural customers at Lucknow.
