 Good morning everyone. Thank you for being part of Entrepreneur India's Resilience series. Today's topic of discussion is Electric Vehicles Greenway. I'm Saurav Kumar, editor of Special Project Entrepreneur India, the moderator for the session. Let me quickly lay down the ground rules for our attendees today. So the discussion will go on for around 30 minutes and it will be followed by a 15 minutes Q&A session. If you have any questions during the course of the discussion, you can post them through the Q&A option at the bottom of your screen if you're on Zoom. If you're watching us live on Facebook, you can post your questions in the comment section. Mention in your question if it's directed towards any specific panelist and we'll take up the questions for the final discussion. So I'll quickly introduce our finalists for the day today and we have with us Mr. Akash Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Electric Mobility. Mr. Anand Ayadurai, co-founder and CEO of Vogo. Mr. Rajinder Bala-Raman, director of Magic Partners India Advisor. Welcome everyone and thank you for agreeing to be part of today's discussion. So the world including India has been talking about moving to EV for a while now but India's update has been slow. There was a plan to only have EVs by 2030 but that seems a little stress now. So we'll go on to the policy part later since it's a resilience period. So I would want to first know from you for our audience to know that how has been the experience for you during the COVID and what are the challenges and learnings that came up to you. So if I can start with Akash. Sure. Hi everyone and thanks for calling me entrepreneur India. Thanks Arup. Hello to the panelists here. So EV for us is like a two year old, two and a half year old journey. I would go a little bit back behind COVID to see that what are the key challenges that we face to establish ourselves in an EV kind of an ecosystem. We've got about 1000 odd vehicles right now which are all electric and primarily we as Zip Electric focus on last mile deliveries. But yes, doing EVs and early on we realized that we had to work on getting the right, you know, assets on ground because the Indian terrain is very different versus the foreign terrain. So while US or China would have seen kick scooters India you cannot last a quick kick scooter ride on the roads after a day because the roads are so, you know, bad in shape or our infrastructure is not that supportive. So we had to build the right kind of vehicles that can fly on the roads and then also last for two to three years at least to make business sense out of it. So that's one. Second is the batteries had to be really worked upon in terms of whether we use lead acid lithium ion lithium phosphate. So we worked a lot on the battery side that that you know how do you charge them how do you swap them what is the right you know technology to use for that. So we tried to work a lot on that over the last two years. Also in terms of tracking in terms of telematics in terms of, you know, getting users hooked on to an EV is not very easy because there's always a range exciting. If someone wants to ride 100 kilometers he would always think twice before taking a electric scooter because because you know there's always a battery element here and there are not enough fuel stations where you can just go and you know, take a load on and ride another few kilometers. So that's been I would say a little bit of our background journey to solve some of these challenges. And I'm sure that we can go deeper into it as we go along through this conversation. But COVID I think per se, since you asked about that question so it gave a bunch of challenges to a lot of businesses not just TV, but essentially how to, you know, give users the confidence of delivering the vehicle, the riders to ride an EV because we do mostly last mile delivery so how to, you know, put a lot of load for a big basket or an Amazon and then do deliveries. So those were things that that were very interesting. But I think they're the biggest support that the startup could have gotten and thankfully we were lucky enough to get that was that we my team, you know, from day one of COVID they said that we are standing on ground, we will serve any customer who comes on the way. And I think that was the most resilient part that that startup had to show that the team which is on ground who's managing operations was standing tall and saying that we are sanitized don't worry. We will ensure that you know, whatever kind of customer comes we will give them a good experience. So that's what zip has been trying to do. And I also believe that given that you work with, you know, people who were into delivering essential at that point in time. So I think it was more required for you to be on ground and to be ready. I would believe very, very important. Yeah, I mean, we actually garnered a lot of customers who were in Delhi and CR who wanted to deliver to customers homes. They were looking for a partner. We, you know, stepped up and we said that whether it's an easy day or a modern bizarre or, you know, a small store who wants to deliver to the customers, we would serve them. And that's how, you know, we actually, you know, quadrupled our sales during that time, I would say, but it's all because the timing was right. And we were, you know, wanting to deliver essentials on EVs. And then yes, that paved some good way for for the business, I would say, for zip specially. Anand, I'll come to you. So, how has been the ride for you starting March and till now? Like, how have you been, you have to understand these things very well. Am I right? Yeah. Quickly some background about how our business operates and how COVID has impacted us, right? So the last two years we've grown from a few hundred vehicles to almost 20,000 vehicles. We have a primary in Bangalore and Hyderabad and our primary offering to customers pre COVID was our system of scooters which are present all across the city where you can go and pick up that scooter and drop it at a different point in the city. So it's a seven drive mobile rental business in that sense. We had a few hundred electric vehicles as well, which we are scaling up which were typically high speed electric scooters which give a performance similar to a Honda Activa or a previous Jupiter. Right? That's what we're planning for on the electric side. Post COVID, we've actually seen two, three things that have changed in the business and we went back and we looked at the product portfolio. So part one is that we started to see that customers. So the best solution for anybody to go from point A to point B is that beyond owning your own vehicle, it is to rent a vehicle from us because the next set of solutions typically require you to have either a driver or a co passenger with you, whether it is public transport, whether it's a car, whether it's a rental bike taxi, whatever the solution is. So this is the next best solution for customers but we still feel that customers wanted to keep the vehicle with them for a longer time. So we launched a product called BoboKey which is a product by which you can keep the vehicle scooter with you from anywhere from one day to 60 days. And what that lets you do is that you don't need to think about has somebody else used this vehicle this day. The second thing that we started doing is we started sanitizing before every ride and after every ride because we saw that that's something customers really cared about. And we started putting time stamps on when the vehicle was last sanitized so that people could see that the vehicle was sanitized at a particular point in time. The third piece of the puzzle is that people post over the last few months are not necessarily waiting to step out and come pick up a scooter. You might have to walk a few hundred meters to come pick up a scooter and then take it back. You may not have an immediate need. So the third thing we started doing is to offer home delivery where a customer can basically ask for a vehicle to be delivered to him at his home. This is for anything beyond seven days in terms of booking so that the customer actually sees it. And we also sanitize the vehicle in front of the customer whether he's picking it up at the pickup point or even at his home. So that as a customer you know that this vehicle has been sanitized and it's not something which is in an accent sheet somewhere or in an app somewhere. So broadly we saw these three things and in our minds what we are seeing is that more and more customers want to keep the vehicle with them for longer periods of time. Use cases are more around essential services and essential travel. So even during the lockdown, even in April and May, we continued to operate because we were providing vehicles to delivery executors at that point who were either delivering groceries, food or medicine. And so that was a large chunk of our business then. Most may be seeing that more and more customers it's beyond the essential services. It's also customers within the city wanting to go from point A to point B. But we are seeing both of these opportunities now. This is the last point, delivery opportunity as well as customers wanting to go for office, for shopping, for anything leisure oriented from point A to point B. So that's how we are done with COVID. These are two or three things that we have changed from the product portfolio perspective, from the sanitization perspective and also just starting to give customers more and more comfort that this is a safe product that you can go from point A to point B. So that would have meant Anand that you required more manpower and expenses to manage when you do the home delivery and sanitization. So how did you work that out? The interesting thing is that earlier we were primarily an odd demand business, which means that you had to acquire three to four customers per vehicle per day because there are different four customers using the vehicle on a daily basis. Now that we are seeing that more vehicles are going for longer periods of time, in some sense we are handling lesser customers. Because home customers are having pretty customers for a vehicle over one week. We have one customer for a vehicle over one week, which means that the overall maintenance required for that vehicle, the amount of time you are spending on maintenance, the amount of effort you are spending on maintaining that vehicle is significantly lower than before. So actually we have seen that we have manpower now at every station or every location that we have. We have one manpower which is there on a one-ship basis. But the other effort that we had, which was around maintenance of the vehicle on a more regular basis, those have actually come down. So it's an edit in some sense. Alright, so Redkinder, I'll come to you. You, Matrix, as you mentioned that we have three investments in the PV space. So how have you been reading this space? Especially what I would want to point out is that during the lockdown, we experienced in bigger cities at least that what a clean environment could be, what a pollution free environment could be. And we all know that in bigger cities at least maybe it's not more, but one third of the pollution is through regular, is regular pollution. So do you think that people would want to see more EV solutions and that would make you excited about the space more? Sure. I mean, starting at a very, very high level, I think the Indian manufacturing story is really one that is intertwined with the Indian automotive sector story. The automotive sector, if you think about the contribution to overall manufacturing, it's almost 40 to 50% of Indian manufacturing is actually related to the automotive industry. And this includes across SMEs, OEMs, parts, global exports, etc. So in some ways India's future as an industrial part is somewhere linked to the automotive industry. We're already seeing globally that the automotive industry has actually rapidly started moving towards electric vehicles. And so for us as a fund when we took kind of a five year, 10 year call and we are long term investors, it was very clear to us that the EV transformation will happen. The question is always when, but the EV transformation in India will happen and it will happen in India more manufacturing led rather than consumer pulled first. Because remember that the consumer in India is incredibly price conscious. So, you know, for them to actually, you know, pay whatever extra amount they may want to pay, you know, it will take them time. They're very capex sensitive or outflow sensitive. So that means that there's a lot of business model innovation that is required. Obviously Vogo's company that we're proud to be partners with significant business model innovation on, you know, shared mobility and how do you actually bring the cost of, you know, that ride, you know, EV ride experience down for consumers. So that's a very clear business model innovation. Similarly, Ola Electric, there's, you know, a lot of work that's going on on, you know, just innovating around the infrastructure and the business model around that as well as, you know, the form factor and the business models around that. And then there's a third investment we have, which is more on the Riksha side. Again, a lot of business model innovation. So frankly, I think the supply led story here is going to be more important than the consumer pull backwards. And the supply led not just in terms of OEMs, but also companies such as these three, which are innovating in terms of business model. And of course, Akash and his team as well were innovating around the business model and actually bringing EV supply into the market. So I think that's where the, you know, story is really going to take off. Why will customers, you know, pull something? I think it's a good question to ask. I think in Vogo's case, it's very easy because, you know, the cost of, you know, experiencing that, you know, EV ride is very, very low. But in other segments, actually, the customer is going to pull this because of some version of, you know, total cost of ownership. So if you can, if you can combine the fact that, you know, I'm not only better for the environment, but I'm also cheaper. I think it's almost a no brainer. Every customer would want to move overnight. And I think there are some segments in, you know, the market where that is already true, the total cost of ownership is already lower. And, you know, the green slash environmentally friendly argument is already evident. That's what prompted us to frankly make, you know, these bets in the market. In Vogo's case, I think the simple logic is that, you know, there are multiple, you know, you know, opportunities to basically sweat the asset more, the total cost of ownership come down. In Aakash's company's case, they're doing deliveries, which basically again sweats the asset more, so the cost of deliveries comes down. In Oireksha, they're, you know, a shared mobility solution. So again, doing both mobility and delivery. So again, sweats the asset more and brings the cost of delivery down. So if you can combine the TCO story as well as the green story, I think, you know, there's enough pull. But if you're expecting consumers to pay a significant amount upfront over and above, you know, what a nice engine cost. Frankly, you know, that story is going to take much longer. I was reading a report right here just in the morning and the current report. So it says that, you know, with fame and then on top of that, the reduction given by the state government, actually the cost of EVs might, you know, it becomes lower than the ice basis. But the problem, again, again, which you were talking about is that who goes for it? I mean, where does it start? Does it start at the infrastructure level or does it start at the OEM level? Can you say that it's the OEM level? But privately, I think the infrastructure story in terms of charging and all needs to also play out. And do you think there is a role that startups can play there in terms of creating, you know, unique business model that will spur this development? Sure. I'll share my view. I think startups are perfectly capable of delivering and creating the digital infrastructure. But there's a lot of physical infrastructure that's required here as well. So that's a pretty tall order and a tall ask. I think if you look at OEMs, honestly, and again, I don't want to speak for OEMs. But if I think, you know, OEMs have just gone through BS6 upgradation, right? I mean, that's like a multi installer instrument that, you know, all OEMs have made. So I struggle to understand how OEMs can be expected to, you know, invest again to actually enable this transformation towards either on the infrastructure side or even just frankly on the technology side. You know, all of these BS6 investments have to be, you know, recovered over the next five to seven years at least, maybe even longer. So that does create a window of opportunity. There are some startups who can actually step in and, you know, innovate and create better, you know, products over the next five to ten years. And there are some who are the digital infrastructure. I think, you know, whether it's the tech IP, whether it's the, you know, swapping infrastructure standards, whether it's the payments layer, whether it's the BMS layer, any of the IP areas, I think there's a lot that, you know, that startups can do. And as far as the physical infrastructure is concerned, honestly, I think, yes, they can, but it does require a lot of partnership with government. Because, you know, the government, thankfully in some, you know, cities and states has announced, you know, meaningful subsidies and partnerships, but it's not nationwide, right? And so I think there's a lot of, you know, that's a lot that still needs to happen. And honestly, also longer term, you know, there needs to be just a consistent, you know, policy around EVs for the long term. Because no company, whether an OEM or a startup or investors like ourselves are comfortable with, you know, policies that keep, you know, changing over, you know, every one or two years, right? Because these investments are made with a five to ten year horizon. So I think the government is working towards that. There is a policy that, you know, is being framed and we were, you know, massive supporters of, you know, any policy that comes out that promotes the EV industry. I think there are ways that India can leapfrog and, you know, lead in the automotive industry globally. There are only two or three geographies globally where, you know, this technology exists and India has always been a leader in the automotive industry, you know, the auto component industry. And certainly not lose the opportunity with the transformation towards EV. Yeah, I'm sure that we definitely have shown a lot of courage when they were asked to switch directly from four to six. So, you know, they have made those investments and even, you know, so, you know, Akash will come to you. So as Rajinder was mentioning that, you know, the policies that are there, obviously there is change, but the other policies are, you know, area specific. So you started with a full electric, do you think that if a robust infrastructure which allows intercity, you know, transportation also, would you think that's something that would impact you as well in terms of logistics? See, I think for a mass adoption of EVs, what is right now required is to first get the consumers like you and I to start adopting EVs, right? That's the first thing. And then we can go to intercity. I think within the city, if you're able to commute on an electric vehicle, then I think you start building confidence. There's, oh, this EV, there's no pollution. There's no sound. It's so smooth. I'm able to cover the miles that I want to do on an EV. And I think that's how the confidence would start building and then people can adopt, you know, bigger vehicles or intercity vehicles. So my point on that is that two-wheelers make a lot of sense where you can at least taste the youth, you know, the youth, why are the personal mobility routes like Vogo's doing and, you know, why are the huge delivery executive fleet, whom we are, you know, putting and converting to shift to an EV, to sit on the vehicle and do the deliveries. I think those are two very big segments that we are talking about. And what, and as you were just discussing, there's a lot of role that startups can play in this, whether it's setting up the charging infrastructure, whether it's setting up the swapping infrastructure, which is very, very critical to give that convenience and that recall, you know, mind recall for the user that, oh, I'm sorted. I'm not going to be stranded anywhere. And these startups, I mean, like we were, you know, about an year, year and a half, we dribbled a lot on the personal mobility side by giving monthly, weekly plans. And the first thing for the EV adoption which came forward to build a successful customer experience was to ensure that we have battery-shopping stations until and unless we didn't have battery-shopping, EVs could not fly because every now and then in the first month when we, you know, tried to do longer, right plans, people were getting stuck just even if they were charging, they didn't know how to properly charge, the battery-shopps were available, we were giving them charges to take homes. But I think it was a journey that we slowly learned and then we set up a lot of charging stations, you know, at Kirana stores, at, you know, parking stations, at hubs of our logistics partners to give that, you know, seamless experience and to actually work out whether we can also serve and ride that scooter. In fact, what interestingly I would give a very small example of mine since I wanted to ride a zip only, I ensure that I got a plug point, you know, placed at my, you know, ground floor, you know, connected to my, you know, electricity meter and then a lot of cars also now like MG, you know, and others, they have third-party agencies or an Aether is also doing that whenever there's someone who's booking a vehicle, they will first, you know, do a recce that the charging station can be, or a plug point can be placed there, you know, with their submeter so that, you know, they equip these guys. And I think that is one of the initial things that we are seeing for EV adoption and the way that this word of mouth spreads that more and more people are liking it, more and more people are moving towards it and it's making a lot of economical sense, you know, for an individual or a business. So business we are very sure, I mean, we are saving about 20% costs for every delivery for all the partners whom we are serving, which is a huge cost at scale, right? And if we are able to multi-fold this for a lot of, you know, partners, then it makes a lot of sense and EV is not far in this category. And I think on the personal mobility, I mean, you know, it would be in a similar way. That's what I think. So I think for you, you started with, you know, non-electric vehicles, but then you have set your central target, I believe, of 10% of your fleet could be something. So why this shift? I mean, what was the gains that you saw in this transition? See, I think like Rajinder and Akash have pointed out, right? Electric mobility has been in some sense a chicken egg question, right? If it is a consumer, then it can be a final end consumer is using for personal use or a consumer is using for commercial use like delivery. That's one part of the equation. The third part of the equation is fleet operators like me and Akash. The third part of the equation is the ecosystem. Is there a charging and a swapping ecosystem which can enable either the consumers or the fleet operators to operate and essentially make, actually build scale, right? What we are seeing today is obviously like Rajinder said that for consumer perspective, right? Even with the daily policy, which has actually in my mind is actually significantly game changing and the recent more notification which talks about selling a vehicle without a battery. I think what has happened is that the difference between an ICER and EV vehicle has become much, much closer than it was literally one month back, right? So as a result of changing, being able to sell the vehicle without a battery, a high-speed electric scooter which is similar to an Activa, right? Which is at close to 1 to 1.1 lakhs, right? Let's say 1 lakh for example. Now the battery component is 25,000, right? So that has now become 35,000 rupees. The road tax and the registration fees are not applicable in Delhi and a few other states, right? That brings it down to 70,000. And here I'm already including fame subsidy. You go and add additional 7,000 to 10,000 for the specific additional subsidy for high-speed scooters, right? Which is for 1.5 to 2 kilowatt hour. You now have a vehicle which is somewhere between 60,000 to 70,000 landed pricing, right? And this will actually meet most of the specs across say fame and zoom. If we are off in terms of specifications, at maximum it is 80,000, right? So what you are now getting is a vehicle which is extremely close in terms of pricing just on an upfront basis, right? So in my mind, some of the developments over the last month have made electric 2 wheeler significantly more attractive to everybody across the ecosystem. Whether it is consumer, commercial or fleet operator. And I would not say this 6 months to 1 year land, right? Because for me at that point in time, there was a significant price difference. And the upfront price difference had to be made up by me running these scooters over a much longer period of time than I would run potentially a gasoline scooter, right? So to me that is very game-changing. But at the end of the day, if you think from a personal consumer use, right? A personal consumer is unlikely to be more than even 500,000 rupees higher than what is used to paying for a regular gasoline scooter, right? Because it's about upfront cost is not about this. So I think the difference between the AV and the ice scooter has now become some 10,000 in my head. But that 10,000 has to become more and more complex and become some 1000, some 2000 kind of number for consumers to really shift purchase from a regular act of a kind of vehicle to an electric vehicle, right? So then it boils down to two kind of people who can essentially buy it. One is people like us who want to buy it for commercial usage because we don't think about upfront cost. We think about how much is the cost per kilometer over the life of the vehicle, right? So for us, the consideration has been that can I pay 50% extra upfront so that I can recover that money over maybe one and a half years versus it takes me more time for a gasoline vehicle, right? Which is a very long term bet that we have to take. That bet has become significantly simpler for us over the last few months, right? With more and more of these subsidies coming in place. It makes it much more attractive for us to take larger bets on electric vehicles that it was in the year back, right? And to me, the biggest state has been the ability to sort of buy a vehicle without a battery and additional subsidies that states are adding. And the third part is the entire removal of the entire piece around road tax and registration fees, right? So to me, this structural change is what means that a lot more companies will move electric at least in our space significantly faster than they would have earlier or they would have planned for a year back that move is going to happen significantly faster as a result of some of these moves. From an ecosystem when swapping and charging, I think again that has the same chicken egg problem, right? Is it going to be players like us who have to develop this across the city? Is it going to be the government? Is the government going to give people grants like Delhi has done to set it up at residential and commercial cases? I think the easier way to sort of build something like that out is to have an ecosystem which does not necessarily depend on infrastructure being built, right? Which means that it is either home charging or home swapping if it is a consumer use case or it is central swapping if it is a commercial kind of use case. Because building infrastructure means that you take a goal which is potentially 3 years out and make it a 5-year 10-year goal. Because that creates one more water lake for electric to become mainstream and it is not that there aren't water lakes, right? So you want to eliminate water lakes rather than add additional water lakes. So our view is that the ecosystem should develop in a way that people don't need to make significant capital expenditure upfront to create. You can't say that I have to spend hundreds of crores to create infrastructure and then people will start buying makers, right? Because that never happens. Nobody in the ecosystem has an incentive to spend a large amount of money upfront and then wait for results over a long period of time, right? It makes sense to create a home-based charging swapping infrastructure or a central swapping infrastructure if you are commercial. And then sort of make it attractive for people to start buying makers rather than create obstacles. So I think the direction that the policies are going in terms of subsidy, the direction that's in terms of being able to sell the vehicle with a battery, we are actually moving very significantly in the right direction this year. And I see that a lot more people will start entering the electric space in the coming few months and the coming couple of years than would have maybe a year or so back because I think it's become commercially more and more attractive as the government starts to incentivize it. And I believe that once Delhi has started doing it, more states will start to do it in a much more aggressive way. For me, for example, this Delhi policy means that I would launch Delhi significantly ahead of what I would have originally planned. So if I was planning to do that a year or two thousand nights, I might do it later this year or early next year versus doing it in the 2020 to 2023 kind of scenario because it has now become attractive for us to actually launch it. So I will get to ride a Vogo by the end of this year in Delhi, you mean? Yes. Okay. So you talked about incentive for obviously for private players, it won't be, but as a federal system, I think the government, without any incentive and 100 crores, 1000 crores, whatever it takes to spur the development, I believe that they can do the investment and they can take on this responsibility. So the kind of pollution problems that we, everyone, every year is, you know, fighting with. So I think that's the only way to step away from the government taking that decision. Rajendra, I'll come to you with a question that, you know, now that, you know, Anand is very actively and elaborately put it that why makes more sense to enter this space and be here. And now he's, you know, he's also kind of planning to launch in most cities much ahead because of these policies. So do you think there is space for a lot many more players who can come in and do this? Or if it is there, so will it be only on the commute side or will there be more people on the, you know, manufacturing and those things like you said that, you know, all the digital part of it can be done by startup producing. There is more space for others as well. You know, frankly, there are, there is space across, you know, multiple slices of this market. But the biggest challenge is that this is going to be capital intensive. If you're thinking of going down the manufacturing path of actually building an automobile company, you know, bear in mind that, you know, there are companies which have, you know, decades of experience in the space or some startups which have, you know, three to five, maybe 10 years of experience in the space who have, you know, built a significant amount of IP as well as have very deep understanding of supply chain and auto manufacturing components, the automotive global supply chain as well. So there is a, you know, there is a learning cost that is a, it is capital intensive. And so this isn't a game for the faint hearted for sure. If you're thinking of, you know, purely tech place, I think there are, you know, bets that one could, you know, possibly take and you know, there are other investors on this call happy to collaborate with some of them. I think, you know, there will be the existing OEMs will definitely want to make a shift towards, you know, EVs as well. And many of them actually just lack the IP. And I think they will possibly acquire IP to kind of kickstart their, you know, growth on this journey. And so companies that are building, you know, pure IP bets. I think that would be a very active market for, you know, acquisitions down the road, both in India and globally, whether you choose to go down that path that's a separate discussion. But I know that there are some bets which are just pure IP bets that can get developed. So if you're thinking, you know, building a pure automotive company, whether focused on, you know, the two-wheeler segment, the four-wheeler segment or the commercial vehicle segment, I do think that there are, you know, bets that can happen. But like I said, significant, you know, capital that will be required. Honestly, I think the bets that we have taken are actually the mobility bets. We think, you know, obviously shared mobility is the future of mobility across multiple form factors. So I think each of the mobility companies that come to own their respective segment of the market, I think we'll find fantastic opportunities to integrate backwards because they actually have the network, they have the data. They know exactly how to set up the, you know, infrastructure, how to sweat that infrastructure to, you know, get to profitability sooner and how to overcome that chicken and egg problem faster than any other company going after this. So we've taken a mobility first view of this and we therefore invested in, you know, multiple exciting companies in the space, each of them going after a very different form factor, different customer segment, very different use case, very deep markets in each of their cases. And our conviction is that the mobility companies will in many ways be best positioned to actually integrate backwards and build out and win this market. So, you know, here's why one of my very favorite question whenever I talk to anyone about TV is that how clean actually are TV. So electricity, per se, you know, I know that, you know, it's very clean when we drive it in the city, but electricity per se is produced primarily by coal in India. So what we're doing is basically moving pollution from out of the city to a particular place somewhere, you know, outside with your city limits and everything, but still is that so, so, Akash, do you think that, you know, you, you, you are some electric, so you can have this question come across your mind that actually, what are we doing? Are we just, you know, putting the pollution out of the city to the countryside? And do we need, because we have, obviously, we have plans for renewable sources that we have set for ourselves in India, but that's far away. And I don't know how much we are going to achieve that. So what should we do? Very interesting perspective, sort of. See, I think, I mean, what we've seen during the world of this, this last four months during COVID is that we've seen, you know, AQI levels to be dropped to, you know, thresholds which we had never imagined. We were all talking about AQI levels at 300, 200, but when it, when everyone was in a lockdown and everyone was sitting at homes and work was happening, I think it was a guiding light that, you know, we could see the greenery around us. I saw those posts where people were seeing Eiffel Tower sitting in the Gurgaon, you know, buildings, right? So I think that is the world that we all want to live in. And there's no, you know, perfect way to get that, right? I mean, we can't stop living, we can't stop traveling, wherever there will be requirements, people would do that. But the intent of, you know, doing it in a way that it doesn't affect us, you know, and we can't solve everything today. So from that perspective, when we started three years back, I mean, our focus was to do only sustainable, you know, means of commute. And that was one of the missions that, you know, Zip stands by, that whatever we'll do, we'll want to do in the best possible way, but in the most sustainable way, right? So looking at EV, now see these batteries while they get charged through electricity, but compare, I think we need to compare a fueled, you know, the kind of pollution that the fuel vehicles are creating and at what cost, versus what an EV has been able to do over the life of, you know, three years or four years that a battery can last. See what we've seen there, so definitely you get a 40% cost saving, you know, on the TCO, so per 100 kilometer, you spend about, you know, $4 on a petrol vehicle versus a $2.5 on an EV. That's a good saving to start with, right? And in India being a very affordable, you know, and a cost saving market, this really works at scale. Second is, you know, you're not the fuel that you're saving, so every minute that an EV has been ridden, we are saving around 70 grams of CO2, you know, to be emitted versus a two-wheeler, you know, which is driven on petrol versus an EV. 70 grams of carbon, you know, CO2, which is coming from a, you know, fueled vehicle, it's going down if it's on an EV. The good part on EV side, which is also there that after three years of that battery life, there are, you know, there are reuse possibilities of these batteries. There are repurposing startups, there are battery, you know, battery life can be extended or it can be put into different applications like a solar application or, you know, the telecom applications. So I think those are things that we feel are a lot right in the current scheme of things. And there are a lot of new innovations and IPs coming to ensure that how this can be further, you know, brought down, whether it's, you know, hydrogen-based cells or, you know, nickel-cobal-based cells, there are a lot of innovations which are happening across the globe. And the idea is to keep moving that and not sit down today to wait for the, you know, bus to be fully ready. But being startups, I think one thing that we need to take a call on is start riding. I mean, we have to continue ride, continue the ride and then keep tagging along people who make the right sense for us and build the business model more stronger or the, you know, mission more stronger. That's my take on it. Before I ask Anand to respond to this, I'll request my attendees again. If you have questions, keep them coming. We'll start taking the questions in a couple of minutes. So Anand, coming to you. So, you know, the same question to you as well, that, you know, the clean mobility that we all talk about. So you have both, you have ice-based systems also, you know, gas-based systems and electric. So when we talk about electric, we say that it's clean. But how clean exactly is it? Correct. No, I think Akash called out that we don't live in a perfect world, right? But the way I would think about this is that if you're talking about 15-20% of all vehicles to be electric by say 20-25 and maybe that's 50% in the next 10-15 years and so forth, right? The source of electricity being cold is not going to remain true for the next 20-20 years. So in my mind, if you are going to consume fuel, fuel is always going to be entirely wrong. But the composition of what electricity is coming from will change over a period of time. So today, it does not seem like, like in the next 2-3 years that electricity's contribution from coal is going to change very significantly. But over the next 5-10-15 years, what moving towards electric does is puts us in a position to be there. So you're right that in some sense you're transferring the AQI from maybe from average AQI across the country. You're pushing it away from cities towards smaller places but first picks up in urban cities, right? That's possible and I don't necessarily have the numbers of the number on my head. But what electric lets you do is that over a period of time it will become cleaner, right? It's always going to get better, it's always going to get worse, right? And I think that's what will make the difference over a longer period of time. Because we're not talking about suddenly taking every vehicle which is on fuel and converting it to electricity tomorrow. We are talking about doing it over a 5-10-year period or maybe over the next 20-30 years, right? By that period in time where electricity comes from can fundamentally change. But where fuel or gasoline comes from will not change. So in my mind, that's the reason to actually start making these moves and in parallel obviously figure out what's the packet behind electricity in the first place and take that in the future, right? Okay, we'll start taking questions and I hope that the lobbies like OPEC can all allow renewable energy to become a reality very soon rather than later. Obviously we have seen a lot of companies also, oil and gas companies also investing in renewable energy. So hopefully everyone's understanding the value. So we have a question here from Arjun Madra. He says that what is the future of E-rich shows under L5 category? So Rajinder, I'll give this question to you because you have investments in one of the E-rich companies. So he wants to know, Arjun wants to know what's the future of this segment? Actually, the segment is doing really well. I was also surprised when I first met this company that we're investors in now, E-Rickshaw. I had maybe traveled by an E-Rickshaw maybe once or twice in my life and I always thought it was kind of a novelty, right? You know, Kahee Chota, the shareman, the military types. But then I kind of opened my eyes and I thought actually these things are all over like urban India and especially in north of Maharashtra and further north and maybe not in the southern states. But they're actually everywhere and my eyes were actually close to them. I just didn't see them on the streets because I wasn't looking at them. But they're actually everywhere. I think there are almost a million E-Rickshaws on the roads and the category is actually growing at strong double digits, year on year, even through this crisis, right? So it's actually surprising. The reasons for why it's growing is also straightforward. Actually, two things. One is the consumer is upgrading from pedal rickshaws. So if you remember and again, you know, most of North India, like there were always these pedal rickshaws which people would cycle and carry two, three passengers at the back. And there's a very large base of that, right? And this is really kind of the bottom of the pyramid in terms of mobility solutions where maybe the consumer is paying 10 rupees. That consumer and that driver is actually upgrading up to an E-Rickshaw, which is a 15-20 rupees price point to generally speaking. Then there is the auto rickshaw consumer who's actually coming down. The auto rickshaw consumer, there's a meaningful base of auto rickshaws also in the country. That consumer is coming down because typically auto rickshaws are used in a short commute kind of a distance, right? And your auto rickshaws today cost 30, 40 rupees in most cities for that short commute. So if you can actually take an E-Rickshaw for 15-20 rupees, you're saving 15 bucks a ride. And we know that there are enough people in the country who are time rich money poor. So even if you end up spending, you know, call it 10 minutes more or five minutes more, why would you, you know, pay 15 bucks more, right? So I think there's a pull from the pedal rickshaw up. There's a pull from the auto rickshaw down. I think it plays in a very different customer segment from, you know, where Anand plays and, you know, or where Bogo plays and where, you know, Ola plays. I think very different customer segments. And frankly, that's the next, you know, customer segment that is coming online and looking for an intelligent mobility solution, which, you know, provides some degree of, you know, assurance that, you know, there will be, I will get to the train station on time or I will go to the market on time. There will be someone who will be there to pick me up. And it will be at a price point where I don't have to haggle and I don't have to, you know, kind of compete. So I think there are multiple enablers for this market to, you know, A, keep continue to grow and B, get digitized and come online. And frankly, it's a segment which is quite under the radar and growing fast and very excited. Exactly, as you said, that is under the radar. So, you know, do you think that it needs to come in the radar because we don't need, we need regulations, do we think we need regulations around e-lecture also so that we make it a very proper legitimate business because I don't know if you are, I mean, like, at least you're in Delhi in some parts of Florida and everything, you know. It's a kind of a menace when you look at these auto vehicles flying on the road. It's all over and you know, it's not regulated. They do not have proper stands where they can pick up and, you know, stop for, you know, for people to get down enough. So do you think that we need to put a little bit of focus on because this is a growing segment, we should have regulations around it? You know, I, you know, in general, I'm, I'm a fan of regulation that enables rather than any regulation that, right. What would enable this industry is, I think, first and foremost, let us, you know, recognize that it is an industry. It is also the largest electric, you know, kind of fleet or asset class in the country today. It is significantly impacting and positively impacting the environment in, you know, the regions that, you know, it does operate. And I think the government does, at least the Delhi government has clearly announced policies around Eriksha so they recognize the category exists. I think the, yeah, so I mean, at least some governments clearly recognize that it, you know, it is a, you know, vehicle pump factor that, you know, promotes the environment is good for consumers, given price point, et cetera. So I think there are, you know, I think what you are asking for is, you know, should we create, you know, the same version of all your plans and taxi stands and, you know, more licensing, more regulation. Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what we would achieve through that. If it is for consumer welfare and consumer safety, then yes, I think companies like Eriksha, you know, definitely, you know, do a lot of work on impaneling drivers to make sure that they are, you know, verified drivers, et cetera. And, you know, especially in times like this, there are 50 standards. But if it is about, you know, trying to, you know, create one more, you know, license Raj, only so many licenses will be given out each year. I think that's frankly, you know, anti-consumer and anti-EV industry. Point taken for the people. So we have another question. This is from Parviz. He wants to know that with the tele policy and other states following, what are the main benefits that an EV startup will get from these, I think to some extent, Anand has answered, but I'll, again, put it to you, Akash, that what do you think are the benefits that have come from pain and other state policies that encourage you to be in the space or whoever wants to come in the space would be in college? I think the biggest enabler these policies give to a nascent ecosystem like EVs, which is, I would say, a sunrise industry starting to kick off and get off the block, is one, there's a lot of confidence that it builds in the entire ecosystem that if there are policies made for it, if there's so much effort that government is doing, then it makes a lot more sense for younger startups to jump into different pieces of the puzzle because nothing is fully solved right now, whether it's the OEM piece, whether it's the battery piece, as Rajinder was saying, whether it's the BMS, whether it's the telematics, there are a lot of scopes into different scheme of things that can be solved while the nation is building towards going electric. At the same time, what I see as a light at the end of tunnel for us is the focus on the logistics segment to go 100% electric by 2025, as Deli Evi policy mentioned, or by 2023, about 50% of all the logistics companies to go electric, I think that's something that's the mission that we are on, to see how the entire logistics segment can move to electric and that makes a lot of sense for companies because there's cost saving, there's sustainability and what else you are looking for if you are at a large scale, doing millions of deliveries a day. So those are things that, and along with that, one of the very interesting elements which the policy mentioned was the scrap value of the product, which we've not talked about because that enables a lot of easier financing options. So we have the fleet which is all owned by a third party. So we have H&Is or investors who buy these vehicles and then we lease them out from them. Now they were always looking for a buyback option. Now if these policies come along where there's a buyback to be done by the government of the scrap value of the vehicle, I think that enables a lot more confidence in financing and today bank financing is not that easy for an EV but I think with policies like this that also is not far away at scale. So those are some green and brownie points that I saw along with the subsidies which are very well carved out from 5,000 to 30,000. So it's a well-placed policy. I think other cities and states should try to adopt some of those variants which have come out in the recent policies and that will only scale up the EV mission that the country is on and right from Neethi Iyoga, Prime Minister, everybody has been supporting that. Okay, great. Rajan sir, there is a question. I will read it out to you. I would really want you to help this person called Suraj Pajapati. He says that being a student we do not have links with the angel investors which can help us to get through. I mean, that's a very fair but I would want to know so if someone is starting out in the EV space as an entrepreneur as a startup so what should be the way one should look at getting investment from maybe an angel investor and maybe funding whatever. So what would you advise? What would you advise as a startup? I would recommend people put together a very, very well thought through presentation and a very well written email and then bet on that well thought through presentation and email getting the attention of an investor. See the truth is that investors are better. Is there a magic solution that one should adopt while writing a mail to you? I don't think there is any magic solution. Just for everyone who is on this call I mean I am happy sharing. I am a graduate of a very good Ivy League business school but I got my current job with a cold email. I wrote to Avnish who founded Matrix India. It was a cold email. It was a well written email. I explained to him why I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I wrote a very nice resume and he gets hundreds of these emails. I am sure he does not answer each of them actually. Avnish personally actually does. But he probably does not take more than 5% of those meetings and I have my job today based on that. But it is the same. If we don't see enough thought that has gone into that well written email or that presentation which explains what you are doing and why you are doing what you are doing. Frankly it is not. We are also being judicious about how we spend our time. Ideally we would like to spend at least 50 to 70% of our time helping founders that we work with to build large and successful companies because that is what allows us to be in business and that is what keeps the flywheel kind of going. But we do spend significant time meeting new founders as well but if you have not put the effort into clearly enunciate your thoughts we are not going to invest half an hour, one hour if your email is really poorly written. Sorry to be very blunt on this one. The biggest hurdle is to cross the first round as in the engine or the game becomes challenging when you have to talk to Rajinder and the others that make this partner. Good question. But see I think every round obviously the first round is not the easiest one because for at least the first time founders but as you keep growing your battles become bigger and your expectations are also in that sense different. So I think it's not about the round per se or it's not about the male or the struggle but I think it's about doing the right thing at the end of the day if you believe. So like the Suraj who's writing this question I would say that jump into it I think you will figure out enough and more people who can back you if you have the passion and the vision to build something. And I mean I did my corporate world for 11 years and then I left it all to start up this venture and I was always the biggest fear for me is that if I fail what will happen? I mean the fear of losing it all was the one thing but then once you take a call on it just jump into the bandwagon and then journey start up is always not perfect on day one you figure out your journey, you figure out your pivots and then you build the right business model so those chances you need to take but you need to be a part of this gut call that you need to take that yes I have to do it. You will learn how to send the email you will learn maybe how to build the pitch tags from failures but that's what a start up journey is all about. So we will just take one more question that has come for Anand Anand what was to know that post COVID people will prefer to have their own vehicles more than vehicles which are being used but so what do you think about it? So I think the question is that people will be more comfortable owning the vehicle rather than but as you said that your program for longer period that you give the bike to the scooter to someone has worked. So I think the reason why our company and Mobisi and a bunch of these companies exist is because if you buy a vehicle then for 90-95% of the time it is sitting in your basement somewhere because it's just lying there being unutilized and what companies like Moga and Mobisi do is unlock that value that remaining 95% of the vehicle is standing there we give it to 4 customers doing that same thing I think that's what we essentially create. So you will be paying for 2 years of EMI and you will be purchasing a vehicle that is obviously the safest thing and you can do it but you are also spending a lot more money than you need to if you are going to drive fully 10 or 20 kilometers a day or lesser than that. Something like what is the entire industry does is says that you don't need to pay for what you use if you are going to use the vehicle for 1% of the day pay for 1% of the day. What we are seeing and this is more COVID specific is that people are more comfortable instead of paying for that 1 hour to pay for 1 day they might use it for 4 hours they might take for 7 days and use for 2 days but they are more comfortable doing that today but at the end of the day still 4 times in a month that vehicle is getting used by 4 different customers you are not paying for 30 days and travelling for 7 days if you are going to pay an EMI of 2500 rupees a month you might take 7 days worth of Bogo or 4 different 2 day products from us and use it when you need to and maybe spend 1000 rupees and still the product is completely safe I think that's the problem we are solving what changes is the unit in a pre-COVID era you might have been comfortable with a 15 minute 30 minute ride now we are more comfortable with 1 day because 1 day or 7 days tells you that the product is available Alright, gentlemen we have run out of time so we will have to close but thank you again so much for coming here and speaking to Entrepreneur India it was very insightful not only for me but for the audience also and as you mentioned that it's a step by step process for EVs to become a household thing and hopefully it will happen and hopefully Anand and I will see a Bogo by the end of this year in Delhi and in other cities so good luck everyone and thank you for being here Thank you Thank you