E-COMMERCE & INTRA-CITY LOGISTICS HAVE STRONG POTENTIAL FOR EV ADOPTION

Deepak MV, CEO & Co-founder of EV startup ETrio tells PCQuest what makes EVs a better choice for the E-Commerce and intracity logistics and how retrofitted electric light commercial vehicles (eLCV) can speed up the EV adoption in these sectors

- Soma Tah

What makes e-commerce and logistics a potential area for EV adoption in India? What are the factors that could accelerate the adoption further?

Commercial Vehicle sales have grown 20% and 17% in FY 18 and FY 19 respectively to reach 1 million mark. The small commercial vehicles (SCV) segment (vehicles under 1 Tonne) stand at 235,024 (287180 including LCV Dost) with more than 15% share of the overall commercial vehicles category. The SCV industry finds its primary application in the intra-city logistics space and has been growing at an incremental rate of 10%, 17% and 35% respectively in the last three years.

The Indian logistics stands at USD 160 billion with road transportation contributing to a lion’s share of 65%- is also another potential area for EV adoption. The logistics value chain comprises transportation, warehousing and administration.

Some of the major factors which will accelerate the EV adoption in intra-city logistics especially in the e-commerce logistics space are:

Decarbonizing Mandate: Most governments have set deadlines for complete transformation of mobility to zero-emission. In addition to this, major e-commerce and incumbent logistics players have unilaterally set targets for transformation of their commercial vehicle fleet to electric as shown below:

Ease of Charging Infrastructure: A key component in enabling electrification of intra-city logistics is the ease of charging infrastructure. The e-commerce logistics space can adopt this if they are provided with charging facilities at hubs, overnight slow charging options, and government subsidies for enabling EV charging infrastructure. Adoption of renewable energy will also help in driving the electricity costs down.