 Good evening everyone. My name is Nishan. I'm a managing director and partner with BCG and I've had our practice out of Bangalore. I've been working in the automotive space for the last 16 years, both with new age as well as, you know, traditional OEMs. Let me set the context of the question first. We all know automotive industries undergoing, I would say, poor simultaneous revolution. First is the electrification of vehicles. Second is the whole connectivity vehicle and, you know, the previous session was also speaking about that. Third is shared mobility. And the fourth being autonomous driving, which obviously is in its, in very nascent stages. The whole scale of this change is at an unprecedented level, especially if you look back at the whole automotive industry, since its exception, all the big changes that have ever happened, I don't think has been at this point. And all of this is happening not just simultaneously, but at a very rapid pace, which has given the industry an opportunity to fundamentally get disrupted. And that's why we are here. You all, you know, in your organizations have been leading this disruption. So thank you very much for being here. Let me start by, you know, first exploring why does, you know, the new age companies have an edge in this automotive era. So maybe the first question to you, Uday and, you know, Varun, me starting with Uday. Both of you are making products for the industry and you are directly competing with many of the incumbents who have developed automotive products for, I would say, decades. What according to you is the edge that you guys have as compared to them? Maybe Uday, we'll start with you and then Varun. Look, I think, first of all, thank you to entrepreneurs, you know, to hosting this event in Bangalore. Clearly, I think, you know, the market, when we go back, and I think, you know, if you look back six, seven years ago, and I think I still remember, you know, we first connected with Magenta. I think what I was going to say is that companies in the new age, it's like, you know, we are building technology. We are building products faster. I also think in this space, you know, before we were using sustainability, a lot of the big boys and girls didn't really believe in it. You know, Bajaj is one of the biggest players. I think he said something about having somebody for breakfast. I think, you know, in one of his statements. So I think there was a lack of belief in this space. And I think we're a lot of startups, whether it is OEMs, whether it's logistic players. We didn't go as far as everybody. You know, why would any of us, you know, we're sitting here, being this game, if we didn't think, you know, we had a chance. I think one thing that was supposed to change, I was a hedge fund manager for a very long time. I think the access to capital. You know, I don't think, Darryl, you being in UAE that time would have thought you'd be doing this today. But I think you've got access to capital. I think we were able to bring new technologies. We were able to do it quicker, faster. I think, you know, by the time the incumbents are going to do one thing, we're going to do tech. Now they have, they have huge capital. But I don't think capital is the only game, because if you're able to produce, if you're able to cave and assimilate and align forces, I think it gives us continuously, you know, an edge in, it takes time, because the structures they have, right? I mean, you're a BCG, you know, you see the structures you have versus maybe compared to us, right? Obviously, as we get bigger, we will also have that issue. But I think what I think we have is, I'll tell you two things first, we have the hunger. Next, I think a lot of us want to make a change. And, you know, we've got Arum. Arum, please man, come join us, man. Please, please. There's another, there's another guy here who I think, you know, watch out. You've been watching this guy for a long time, but I think, you know, Arum's come up. I'll give you a good example. Why is Arum today, today stuck? Because he came up with a technology which nobody had, and he was able to execute in a very short period of time, quicker, faster than everybody else. So I think, again, I'll just leave that with, I think, you know, we are continuously working on building, you know, new products faster and quicker, so I think having, you know, just being people doesn't mean honestly, they have a lot of money. But I think a quick reactionary force can probably take out an entire fleet of, you know, you know, why is Russia not able to do a good Ukraine? They have got 10 times, yeah, they continuously got a quick, faster technology oriented. Drones have been fighting it today, not tanks. So I think in this war of green energy sustainability, I think the least, for me, whether I win or lose, I don't matter. But as long as this country is clean and greener, I think I'm good with that. And I hope all these young guys, you know, especially, you know, what I see, you know, building companies, I wish all of them a lot of success. Thank you. So again, yeah, I completely agree with what I said. But one more thing I would like to add is that the larger companies, they definitely disrupted the market when they came in first. But it's been a while since they have been the market leaders. And when you build a business that is that large, you're in the business of building better. You know, maybe your Honda Civic 2020 is better than 2019, 2021 will be better than 2020, and so on and so forth. So they definitely are better at building better. But what the new challenges or the change of direction needs is building different. I think that's where the DNA or the momentum of a large company really doesn't work in their favor. In fact, it hurts their ability to do different as opposed to doing better. And that is something that we definitely don't come with. That package is something that is not inherent to startups. What we do is really look at the problem and analyze what needs to be done. How do you solve a problem that grounds up with completely out of the box thinking. And that's what really gets you different problems. And problems today require different solutions. Wonderful. Welcome, Arun. Sorry. I had muscle traffic all the way from Hosea. We do need some innovation on the traffic side as well. So, you know, something for you all to think about. But since you're here now, I want to ask both you and Arun. You know, the same question, but slightly differently. You're more in the service business. And of course, you know, there haven't been too many companies doing this earlier. But of course, everyone, even the traditional companies are trying to get into this. Now, when you look at this, you know, yourself as a new age company trying to work on new technologies, as well as the traditional companies trying to get into. Again, what do you see your edge in this space now? I think a short introduction is important. What we do when integrated E-Mobility Logistics Service Provider, right? So we've been operating three wheelers and four wheelers on the cargo side, not the passenger side. Now, you did mention that there are a lot of big players who want to come into this game, right? So, fair. Modem Area is what we believe. Collaboration is what we believe in also. Now, but what has been stopping them from doing all this while? They have the vitamin M, they have the money power. They can just purchase like 5,000 vehicles and dump it in India and run the logistics. No, that does not work like that. We've been working with a lot of FMCG organizations, huge among the top three, top five FMCG companies. The existing combustion engine service providers that they have, they were the first people to in fact try electric vehicle for these companies. Unfortunately, they've not been able to service them. They tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, failed. Ultimately, the FMCGs had to reach out to startups such as Majanta. Why? Multiple reasons. A diesel or a petrol driver does not know how to drive an electric vehicle, right? Their frequent breakdowns, the range and all of that collapses. Point number two, for such big organizations, charging infra is one of the biggest entry barrier, right? It's not as simple as just putting a CNG for five minutes or 120 seconds or something. So this is a second point. And number three, these are very, very, very old school sort of operators, paper trails and telephone based. This is where the edge comes. We are the tech based company. Every inch the vehicle moves, it throws in hundreds of data points. Every second the charger is on, it throws another set of hundreds of data points. Combining all of these three things is something which a new start-up has an edge. That's mine. Yeah, well, Xperient we're an energy company, we're a full stack energy company. So we build batteries, charging, network, the full stack. So you get 15 minutes full charge. Why do we do this? And why do we think this is a start-up problem to solve? Bunch of reasons, right? A, money doesn't solve this problem. You can't bankroll your way into 10,000 charging stations. Well, you can, but each of them will still take a long time to charge. I mean, so fundamentally charging is a technology problem. It's not like petroleum, where fundamentally you're dealing with commodities. So it's really about trading on commodities, distributing commodities, transacting petroleum. That's easy. It's just a simple dumb mechanical process. All that has changed. Energy has now become a two-sided problem. Half the energy problem is actually on the vehicle, which is your battery. Half the energy system is now on the ground, your charger. And no amount of money solves this problem, right? So you've got to fundamentally get down to the brass stacks, solve really hard engineering problems at a battery level, at a charging level. So that's step one. This is a hard tech problem. It's a two-sided tech problem. A lot of utility companies approach this the wrong way. utility companies think, oh, because I generate electricity, I should be able to solve charging. It's actually fairly decoupled, right? Electrons behave the same for everyone. So fundamentally it comes down to, the grid is open for everyone, right? So it really comes down to who can build the best experience on the charging side, the best technology on the battery side, who can pair both of these and really deliver that seamless experience on a daily basis. So there's a technology problem, there's no pressure. And also on a daily basis, getting the right vehicle to the right charging station, that's a very consumer-intended-ish experience. That's the next figure, right? Like, where you have to manage all the Indian chaos on a daily basis and deliver that experience twice a day, twice a day for every user. So I think that fundamentally energy is changing. It's now fundamentally a tech problem. And I think that's why startups have a strong right to win. Great. Ma'am, you have an interesting position in this, right? I mean, you obviously work with all the new age players, but also with the traditional players. So what do you see the difference? Why the new age companies have an edge based on your experience? Thank you. Look, first of all, we have a lot to thank all the new age players, especially those in India. Because let's face it, it's the classic problem where traditional companies are the incumbents and they have something to defend. And whenever you are the incumbent, it's hard to expect innovation there to try and destroy your existing market where you have very high sun costs and you have assets that are already giving you very high returns. And it's because of new age companies that actually traditional companies are forced to also then innovate and also then get around to try to solve a lot of these problems. I think that's great in India right now, that you've got both traditional companies and new age companies pushing the boundaries on technology, pushing the boundaries on customer adoption and bringing right products to market and solving a lot of the challenges that the panelists spoke about. The way I contrast the traditional companies versus the new age companies, particularly on the OEM side, which is where we do a lot of work with all of them, traditional companies, even when they look at EVs, they look at it very similar to their existing markets, their existing business model, which is the ICE business model. They're playing off the conventional strengths that they have, which is brand equity, distribution network and of course very large R&D setup to be able to continuously bring new products to market. But when I see startups, new age companies, they have to compete differently and they are thinking of competing differently. And I think that because Indian consumers are very digital savvy, I think there lies an advantage actually for new age companies, which I think a lot of them are now getting, because traditional companies see their business model as a wholesale business model. Whereas if you see how Tesla today sells and which is what I think a lot of EV players in India are starting to also get, what you ideally want to do is build your customer base. You want to generate your own inquiries, you want to be able to nurture and convert those inquiries and then you want to be able to drive value from that customer over the customer's lifetime. Now that's not how traditionally OEMs have ever looked at their business model. If you ask them, do you know who's bought your 2 wheeler or 4 wheeler or 3 wheeler, they would have no idea. They know how much sale the dealer or the distributor has picked up. And I think new age companies are starting to look at their business model differently and I think that's how they will end up being able to compete with the inherent strengths that I think traditional companies have. Wonderful. Let me move to the second aspect that I wanted to explore with all of you. Automotive industry and the entire world is moving towards what we call sustainable transformation which requires a lot of technology, innovation as well as investments. Maybe first to Varun and then to Dara. While you have a product, you also are having a service offering. Which areas do you see significant innovation happen from your perspective first Varun and maybe then Dara? Sure. When it comes to sustainability, I think it's undebatable that we need to move away from ICE. When you're thinking about carbon emission, again, you've heard a lot of arguments for it against this whole, the EV emits more carbon dioxide than natural ice vehicle with lifespan. I don't think it's really... You can argue both sides with data just as credible as the other. But in any case, if you are going to rely on ICE, there is just no starting point of reducing carbon emissions. And then which means that the option that we have right now is to move away from ICE but right now, battery operators, we don't have the hydrogen model or the fuel cell models that could potentially become monance tomorrow. But when you're coming to battery operated vehicles, again, depending on the problem that we're trying to solve, we have found that there are solutions that can work very differently from industry to industry. Like four wheelers are a different problem. Two wheelers are a completely different problem. For example, Arun's technology would benefit very well a four wheeler which you can now swap the battery out. It's a fairly large one. And charging that is really only a practical option that you have. And then if you can do it faster, then you take away a whole lot of college that are associated with electric vehicles like the Injunx IT and even battery life. And then there is a problem that you can solve with four wheelers. And the problem that you can solve with two wheelers is make the battery portable. You don't have to start the vehicle, or buy the vehicle with the entire range that you need to cover your highest case scenario. You don't need to have a battery that can do 200 kilometers a day if that's what you do only one day in your lifetime. If the use case is just 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers a day, then the better way of doing that would be to buy a smaller battery where you can just get your normal, complete day-to-day use case covered by it and have portable or a solvability as an option where you can cover your worst case with the network of portable or solvable batteries. So I think there are these new things that you can bring to a vehicle where you reduce upfront cost of a vehicle from what it is right now and make it much more lucrative than even an ice bike. So with a smaller battery you can look at a scooter for less than 60,000 rupees. There is no nothing you can buy for 60,000 rupees in the ice kind of a battery. So you can potentially increase the mobility access to a lot more people and make it sustainable for the environment. Let me start from the top, right? So I think last calendar year we sold about 16,000 electric vehicles. Sorry, my bad, 16 lakhs out of which 50% were two wheelers, right? Slightly higher than 50%. But the remaining 35-40% were three wheelers, right? And these three wheelers were passenger segment as well as the cargo segment, passenger being higher. Now that gives you a trend. Who are the mass adopters? So essentially I was reading the report where it said that 10% of India's carbon emissions are from road transportation, right? Tracking is one of the largest contributor to carbon emissions. This is probably one area that we need to target and tackle. Probably you solve a lot of bigger pieces around it in terms of curbing the carbon emissions. Yeah, so tracking and transportation is one area. Wonderful. My next question is for Uday and Arun for both of you. You know, you're fundamentally developing products which inherently, you know, are technology focused. I mean, you're going towards a new technology disrupting that. Hence, when you look at this entire automobile industry right now, and there are many technology innovations that are happening across, you've seen the world. What technologies are you most excited about? First of all, I'm excited about it goes down to the founders, right? Can they execute? There are a lot of people who can do it, but they can't actually do it. There are a lot of differences. Sorry, speaking of my Hindi here. Sorry Arun, I apologize, right? I keep telling you this. But by the time we have some good friendship, I'm going to make sure Arun speaks fluent Hindi with me. That's one of my KPIs for next year. But what I want to say is, you know, we have looked at many technologies, but what I do want to say is can they execute? Because at the end of the day, you know, our customers, you know, definitely want to see something that is long lasting, something that is quality, something that has service. So for me, you know, we align with multiple forces. You know, we look at, you know, I'm just heading right out of here. We've built something with CVT technology. I was just talking to you earlier. This vehicle drives like, honestly, like, I mean, and I don't even know your car buff yourself. It's like an Honda. You know, it's just the feeling of driving that vehicle will be completely different. We'll be spending, we spent almost two and a half years. It's ready. I'm just going now, and you know, we just want to check over the hills over what's going on. Can it actually carry 900 kg load? So I look at technologies which have a, which people can actually execute. That is extremely important. I also believe, you know, that scale needs to be achieved because I mean, you know, if you're just a one or two year wonder, I don't think you're going to be able to last the game. It's clearly showing right now anybody who cannot, cannot get scared, cannot get long term. You know, technology is good, but you've got to choose the thing. I'll be honest with you. I'm not seeing the big boys and girls in this game adapt new technology. They're going, I'll give an example with battery tech. They're only going with fixed. I mean, really if you look at it, if I look at all the top two or three or four players, they're not going with, you know, fast charging. Yeah, you know, it's swap maybe one player and I think I hear that also is going to reduce. So I think, you know, we need to be able to, you know, I want to be aligning forces with people that are giving me scale, that'll give me the technology that is continuously able to develop. Because what works today, I don't know, I think you can talk about it. What works today, maybe two years later doesn't work. Right? I've worked with some players that have been, that have had great technology. But two years later, they're still sitting there. And I think they're SOL, right? And I think so. I think that's an extremely important part and I think I want technology that can really change the lives of people. And not just in tier one, two, three, four cities, to tier one cities, but two, three and four. Only then, you know, when I see, and I know Magenta's doing this, if I see Magenta in tier three and four cities, you know, apart from, you know, Bangalore or Delhi or, you know, Chennai. For me, if myself or somebody else can give them that technology where they can execute scale in those places, then only can we be really successful. And that's only, at the end of the day, we actually got to make money. And if you don't make money long term, you only do that many rounds. So I think that's where it's important. Thank you. Yeah, man. I think because in this space, the vehicle side of technology has come to a place where it's fairly, it's superior. It's better than everything. Of course, not perfect, a lot more room to improve. But I think there are two, three layers around energy technology, financing technology that I think will sort of be the next set of innovations needed. So everyone has access to EVs, and it could be swap, it could be rapid charging, it could be a different layer of financing on top of it. But I think to pick on one point, we're not on the zero to one phase anymore, right? And I think the, I think hard to realize is India has never built high tech products at scale ever. So we've either made satellites or soap, right? Satellites, you make one a year or defense tech, you make one two a year. There's no cost constraint. There's no supply chain complexity. There's no scale up complexity. Or you make soap or art, right? So like, it is actually the first time. If you look at automotive, we've always been given hand it out platforms, right? So either a Japanese or a German counterpart, we've sort of done the 1,000 to 10,000 journey. We've never done the 1 to 100, 100 to 1,000 journey. So this is the first time India is actually going through this learning curve. So finding the right talent, finding the right systems, finding the right people, finding the right capital to sort of scale this up. I think that would be the focus, I think for a lot of us in India. And India is a hard place to build EVs for. Temperature conditions, road conditions, grid conditions, price points, most of us don't park at home. So how are you going to charge your vehicle, right? So there is so many unique constraints about India. It's a fairly old constraint problem. It's like how we create UPA, just innovate the world of Vintec. So India's really got a thing out of the box. And not really focusing on zero to one tech. Well, a lot of people get prototype, right? I think how do you, prototyping is easy. It's really how do you scale things up and start, you know? Hello. And of course, the size of the market is large enough for people to experiment on this, right? So maybe moving on to bank and, you know, I don't kind of spoke about this point that while one, from one side, it's about creating these technologies and developing these powers. The other side is actually the adoption. So, you know, what are you seeing in terms of the biggest hurdle from the customer side in adopting some of these new age restrictions? So we have the vantage point that we get about 60 million monthly active users across our different platforms on cars, bikes, trucks, tires. And here's a statistic that I can share with you that if we all know that in the two-wheeler industry, EVs as a percentage of two-wheeler sales is roughly about 5% at the moment. And it's been that now for some time. Paying for subsidy changes have sort of dampened the growth of that. But if you actually look at the digital searches and the traffic that we generate for EV two-wheeler vis-a-vis what we generate for ICE two-wheeler, EVs are actually more like 15%. And that tells you that Indian consumers are, you know, there's a lot larger market than what we are serving right now. Likewise, when we look at cars, right now EV car sales in India are roughly about 2% of total car sales in India. But when I look at the traffic and I see the searches and the, you know, on EVs, that's roughly about 10% for cars. So then the natural question is, well, why is the market not 10% in cars or 15% in bikes today? And I think particularly in bikes right now, the hurdle is the price difference between an ICE vehicle and an EV vehicle, which has not really been helped due to the fail-to-subsidy change which suddenly took up, you know, upfront costs by about roughly 25-30%. And I think that is something that, you know, a lot of OEMs will need to figure out at least in the short term how to address. Because in the long term, we know that as battery prices come down because of economies of scale, you know, OEMs over time will slowly start to pass on that benefit to consumers. That will help consumer adoption very soon get to that 15% and further as well. But I think in the short term as well, I think there needs to be a bridge strategy. That can, and there can be various ways of addressing that. You know, it could be maybe, say, giving guaranteed buyback on EVs in order to be able to address that question or perhaps, you know, sharing the risk across with many other stakeholders in the industry who have a stake in growing the industry. I think that's something which could work as well. Or for that matter, maybe changing the ownership model. Perhaps, you know, bikes on subscription could be one way of addressing the high upfront cost as well. I think on the class side, it's more a question of the right offerings not getting there. So there is a very high degree of interest, but naturally right now you just have a couple of OEMs that have a portfolio where about 40 to 50% of their portfolio comes with an electric drive train. But I think give it another maybe 18 months and I think as that offer, that choice goes in cars, we will start to see that adoption start to grow there. So, but I think it's interesting in the two wheeler space. The other thing that is, that I just maybe just leave my panel here who are all brilliant innovators is cracking the motorcycle segment. Because motorcycles today are roughly about 70-80% of the Indian market. And while we certainly see the scope for scooter adoption to happen, how do you crack the motorcycle segment? And there are a few companies that have tried this, but I don't think people have as yet been able to solve that problem. I think once that happens, that's going to be very exciting. Thanks, Mike, for sharing that. I think we are close to the end, but let me squeeze in one more question. In any industry or any market, when you introduce anything new, product, service offering, new technology, it takes time for customer to really accept it. And often you see the growth is very slow for a certain period of time and then there comes an inflection point beyond which it all takes off. So, very short answer. Given the possibility of, and I'll go one by one, where do you think we are in this journey right now, especially towards EV sustainable transformation? Are we there near the inflection, still time to go, maybe a short answer from each of you. So, it's really difficult to answer because the change happens very quickly when it does. The world went from just horses to cars very quickly, 15 years before horses were just a thing of the past. I think there are going to be some markers around how EV adoption is really going to go in the Jacob where the growth would be exponentially on day. I think one of them would definitely be on the financial aspect of it, where the financiers are more comfortable lending and really taking risks on EV ownership. The other one would be definitely around pre-owned EV sales. How prevalent they would be, how much value would EVs continue to carry after like three years or four years of usage? Those are the things, something that builds confidence. Range anxiety is another thing that, when it addressed right, could kick the EVR in the right direction of objective. So these things, when they happen, I think nothing's going to be stopping the adoption. Very quickly, two parts to this question. Number one, I think the biggest issue at Magenta is the lack of vehicles, which has the right form factor. Today we are limited to a sub one ton category. We barely have any vehicles which services one and a half ton, two and a half ton, 6.5 ton, 15 ton, 25 ton, 38 ton and 55 ton. Nobody has those segment of vehicles. Nobody is even addressing those problem statements. So today I think there is demand in the market. People want to try out EVs, but unfortunately we do not have the right product. Point number two, sustainability is just a buzzword in the board. When it comes to people who call the shots on the ground, their top KPIs, cost of logistics. Electric vehicles, operating electric vehicles still happens because of the initial cost of investment and the TCOs. It is still expensive than the TCOs who run Tata Aces and Chota Hathis and Bada Hathis. So these are the two problem statements that needs to be answered. I'll give you a short answer. I think this is not a T20 match, the EV industry in India. I think it's more like a test match. And I think I sort of echo what I was saying earlier as well. So I think the players that have the stamina for the long run, I think those are the ones that will do really, really well and be the ones who end up dominating this industry for a very, very long time. But I think it's important that we all understand that we have to gear up for the long haul here. Technology will keep evolving and a lot of innovation is needed, not just in the technology, but I think in the overall ecosystem for the industry to grow in the right fashion. So yeah, let's see this as a test match. Probably we are in day one, session three at this point. That's a good word. Look, I think I'll absolutely second what my ex-son is talking about. I'll tell you what, at least for me coming out, this journey is a long one. I know Rome isn't built in one day, but we want Rome to be built every day here. But I will tell you the conversation that Darryl and others are talking about in terms of supply, but also in terms of service, quality. I think that's the space. We're working on something new, on load, on e-trucks. I think there's something coming in passenger. I talked to you about how about Jarsopar. Just wait on that. On the passenger side, something big we're going to do. We're going to change. And I'm saying it's not just OSM. I want everybody, everybody to be and build in the ecosystem. I think if we can give this, I think this rage anxiety game, now I think this young man here is going to change that. I really think, I ask all of the guys, all of you, watch this guy, put some money in with this guy. He's got some good ideas and he's executing on the ground. He's shown it in Bangalore. I hope to work with him some day in the future. He's somebody who is working on charging. The financing is being worked on. I see a lot of work being done there. I do see whether it's green energy. I know how you said it's a buzzword, but I do see a lot of work done. I see a lot of green plates when four years ago we didn't have. I see that it's great to see that we change this country. And I think with all the players here, with all the work that's being done, I think I wish everyone would be a room and new ideas, or Darryl, or Max, or even you, you're a young man, so I don't even want to say this. But every one of you work on this and I think hopefully Baha'a Jitega, we will win. Thank you very much. I don't know some last thoughts from you. I think we're so far beyond the inflection point. I think, I mean, we just look at penetration in a couple of segments. We look at mind share. Before this week, if you told someone, and you need to be faster in petrol vehicles or diesel vehicles, they would think you're on something, right? So today it's 15% penetration in three-wheelers. If you look at Bangalore, Delhi, more than 50% of three-wheelers sold are electric. Already sold. I don't think we should be discussing inflection points anymore. There are detractors, cost, flexibility, financing, ownership. A lot of problems to be solved. It's not perfect. But that's also the opportunity for all of us to get together. That's why we're all here. Wonderful. Gentlemen, we are towards the end of our session. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. You are the change makers in this industry and wish you all the best for disrupting the industry. A big round of applause, please. Thank you.