Current capacity is around 60k vehicles per annum and we are in the midst of doubling our capacity and it will be ready by the end of FY 24
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr. Rohit Vadera, CEO, PURE EV
- What’s the market share of PURE EV in the Indian electric two-wheeler segment?
PURE is one of the top 10 EV2W OEMs in the country with leading market share in South India. Our goal for FY 23 and FY 24 is to further strengthen our presence down south and emulate similar success across other parts of the country as well.
We at PURE EV are very particular about the unique sales and after sales service PURE customers experience so we have a very methodical process to on-board dealers that share our passion and are in sync with the company’s ethos.
Since the beginning, we have been following a dealer oriented model. We have 130+ dealers across pan India along with a couple in Nepal and Bhutan. We are aggressively expanding our dealer footprint across India and have further plans to expand into Middle Eastern and African markets as well.
We have recently opened our first dealership in the North East region in Silchar, AS and are quickly following up with one more this month in Imphal. In a couple of years, you would be able to find a PURE dealership across all the major cities and towns in India.
- What is the expansion plan of PURE EV for the next 5 years?
PURE is the only 2WEV OEM in the country that has both Electric Scooters and Electric Motorcycles in the product portfolio for now with aggressive expansion plans over the next 5 years to capture both the Domestic and Export EV2W markets.
Our current capacity is around 60k vehicles per annum and we are in the midst of doubling our capacity and it will be ready by the end of FY 24
- What’s the breakup between your high speed and low speed EV sales?
PURE as a company has moved away from that space in the last few years and Low Speed EV2W sales for us are negligible (~3%).
In the future, all of our sales will be coming from the High Speed 2W EV segment only and we expect the contribution from our newly launched motorcycles will go up significantly over the next 5 years.
- How is the ecoDryft doing in terms of sales? Any plans of expanding the e-motorcycle lineup?
Motorcycles have been our long term ambition and we have been working towards a vehicle that caters to the cost conscious Indian consumer for the last 5 years. All of our learnings and technological developments over this period has helped us to come up with the all-new ecoDryft.
Commute motorcycles are the preferred daily driver for an average Indian consumer. This is very clear with the consistent sales numbers of these motorcycles in the overall two wheeler sales landscape in India.
We have received tremendous response for ecoDryft with 10,000+ bookings and we have started the deliveries to customers from the month of March.
Apart from ecoDryft, we also have our premium electric motorcycle, eTryst 350 that was launched in Aug 2022. So our focus for the next few years is towards brand building with newer facelifts and upgrades and not expanding our line up.
- Are there any plans of expanding the electric scooter lineup? If yes, we’d love to know the launch timeline and the price range that the brand is looking at.
We have sold 60k+ vehicles so far and most of those sales are made up of our high speed electric scooters ePluto 7G and eTrance NEO. These have already created a niche for themselves amongst the EV2W community in regards to their range and reliability.
This was also observed in our impact report that was released in the month of January wherein we have noticed that more than 25% of our customers have done above 20k kms of riding. This is a true testament of our products by our customers.
As mentioned above we want to focus on brand building even with our electric scooters, but will launch facelifts and newer variants in the not so distant future of FY 24.
- Currently how many dealers do you have across the country? Which region or state contributes the maximum of your sales?
Like mentioned earlier, our strongest markets are in South India as the majority of our dealerships are in this region. We are aggressively expanding our footprint across West, North and East India with more and more newer dealerships coming from these regions.
Currently we have a 130+ strong dealership network and our goal is to reach 300 dealer footprint by the end of FY 2024.
- How cost efficient is an EV compared to a Fuel based vehicle? Why?
Electric vehicles have a higher upfront cost, as compared to ICE vehicles, largely on account of battery costs. On the other hand, the operating costs for an EV are much lower. Thus, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is an important and more correct assessment of economic comparison between ICE vehicles and EVs.
With the help of the FAME subsidy, the Indian government has removed this obstacle and brought down the upfront cost of EV on par with ICE vehicles for the common man for better EV adoption.
This along with the PLI scheme that incentivizes local cell manufacturing will further bring down the costs. In the not so distant future EVs will be on par from an upfront cost perspective with ICE vehicles without any subsidies.
- What is the difference between the warranty period of an EV battery compared to a traditional Vehicle battery? Why?
There is not much of a difference in the Warranty Period for the battery in an EV compared to a battery in a petrol two wheeler. Most of the batteries in regular petrol two wheelers come with a 4 year warranty period (2 year free replacement + 2 year pro rata).
For PURE vehicles, the battery is covered under warranty for a period of thirty-six months from the date of purchase or 40,000 kms, whichever comes first. Our customers can further extend the warranty period by another 2 years and get a total coverage of 5 years on the battery.
