New Delhi:EV maker Euler Motors on Wednesday launched its electric three-wheeler cargo carrier HiLoad, which will go on sale from January 15 next year at starting price of Rs 3.5 lakh.
The company, that claims to have tested its HiLoad model for more than 10 lakh kilometres in the last three years, has opened bookings of the vehicle with a payment of Rs 999 on its website or at its experience centres in Delhi and Gurugram.
With orders of around 2,500 units from e-commerce players including BigBasket, Flipkart and Udaan already in, Euler Motors said it is looking to increase its production from 100 units a month at present to around 1,000 units a month in the next one year to meet the demand.
"At Euler our number one goal has been to bring the parity to the electric commercial vehicle segment and that is parity in terms of performance and parity in terms of cost of ownership (with the conventional internal combustion engine vehicles)," Euler Motors Founder and CEO Saurav Kumar said at a virtual press conference.
The company has taken steps to address the primary challenges facing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) regarding availability of reliable products and charging and service ecosystem, he added.
The HiLoad, powered by a 12.4 kWh lithium ion battery, has a certified range of 151 km on a single charge. It has a payload capacity of 688 kg, which according to Euler Motors is the highest in the three-wheeler cargo segment, including conventional fuel three-wheelers, in India.
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Kumar said the vehicle has been launched with three advanced charging variants – home or on-board chargers - provided with the vehicles; lightning chargers that can give 50 Km charge in 15 minutes and 'Charge on Wheels' mobile service station to provide charge and service to the vehicle at any given location or breakdown point. Moreover, Euler Motors already manages a network of over 200 charging infrastructure in Delhi-NCR to support electric vehicles on ground, he added.
On the market response, he said, "We have an order book of 2,500 vehicles that we have to deliver in the next one year... It's from Flipkart, BigBasket, Ecom Express and Udaan, among others."
These companies, along with other e-commerce, hyperlocal and B2B delivery players, will deploy these EVs across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai to strengthen their first, mid and last mile operations. Deliveries of these vehicles are scheduled to take place in the next 6-8 months, Euler Motors said.
When asked about the company production, he said at present it is around 100 units a month and is being ramped up to 1,000 units a month in the next one year. To a query on the company's investments, Kumar said, "We have raised roughly USD 12 million over the last three years so far and almost 30 per cent of it has gone into R&D. From an investment standpoint we will continue to raise as we scale up as a company."
The company's investors include ADB Ventures, Blume Ventures, Inventus Capital India, Jetty Ventures. In future, Euler Motors said it aims to put 5,000 units on road by FY23 and plans to expand to new markets such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.
PTI
