Mumbai-headquartered Greencell Mobility (Greencell) aims to accelerate the concept of sustainable mobility by focussing on advancing public transportation. The young company has already over 1,500 e-buses in its project and aims to deploy 750 e-buses every year.
GreenCell has been set up to become a leading all-India shared electric mobility player by leveraging proven global experience, developments in e-mobility technology, and the government of India’s strong push for electrification of transportation in India.
Promoted by EverSource Capital it aims to empower mass e-mobility business models to accelerate the adoption of green surface transport and match aviation standards using global technology and best practices.
“We intend to mobilise a significant volume of permanent institutional capital into Indian green infrastructure,” says Sumit Mittal, COO & Director – Finance, Greencell Mobility.
The company is building a platform to provide Electric Mobility-as-a-Service (eMaaS) using e-buses and delivering the core value proposition of cheaper, non-polluting, on-demand shared transportation, charging infrastructure, and enabling products for the overall value chain.
At present, the company works with various OEMs to deploy e-buses in the country, including participating in government tenders as well as running private services under the NueGo brand. On the other hand, it also is looking to manufacture 12-metre e-buses for inter-city services.
Well-funded move
It is a well-known fact that the automotive industry has been a capital-intensive segment, and for start-ups in the commercial vehicle space where RoI (Return on Investment) takes much longer, the ability to grow sustainably is a key challenge.
It was in November last year that Greencell secured funding from the likes of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Clean Technology Fund (CTF). They have signed a $55 million (Rs 453 million) financing package with GreenCell Express to develop 255 electric battery-powered buses (e-buses) to serve 5 million people a year on 56 intercity routes in India and enhance the safety of passengers, especially women, through improved security features including cameras, tracking and panic buttons connected to command controls for immediate response.
Additionally, it has also won grants worth $325,000 (Rs 2.68 crore) from the CTF and $5.2 million (Rs 43 crore) from Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg’s Climate Innovation and Development Fund (CIDF) among others. The CIDF grant will partially finance the decarbonisation of 100 of the 255 e-buses by deploying solar power-plus-battery energy storage systems. Overall, the project will reduce emissions of around 15,000 tons a year.
This not only provides strong credibility to the company but also gives it strong financial firepower to make smart inroads in the e-bus segment.
Competition and GCC model
The government of India has been promoting electric mobility across segments. Be it the FAME II subsidy for private vehicle owners or the CESL tender for e-buses under the Gross Cost Contract (GCC), there exists huge opportunities for existing and new players alike.
Greencell on its part is executing multiple projects including around 1,500 buses across government tenders, and 500 buses across consumer business which are funded already. This includes the recently bagged 570 e-bus project under the latest NEBP tender floated by CESL.
“Additionally, we are targeting to deploy 750 buses on a yearly basis. More than 650 e-buses are already operating on multiple routes across India,” says Mittal.
He further says the company closely works with OEMs, operators and other stakeholders to ensure optimisation of returns, to ensure that the business is sustainable and current profits fuel future growth.
“We have a rigorous process for the selection of counterparties, partners, and other vendors, along with evaluation of past track record to ensure that the business is sustainable. GreenCell Mobility has been able to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products that meet applicable statutory, and regulatory requirements and continue to meet changing expectations of customers.”
Manufacturing e-buses
One key differentiator for Greencell versus other mobility platforms is that it also is looking to manufacture solutions that do not currently exist in the market.
At a Group level, GreenCell is currently involved in manufacturing 12-metre e-buses to support its inter-city business.
“We are also supporting the entire EV ecosystem including other manufacturers in the production of 13.5-metre e-buses through contract manufacturing. Our plans of supporting the manufacturers are currently focused on in-house demand to fuel our inter-city business,” shares Mittal.
He says as an organization it is “quite open to the idea of collaborating with stakeholders, across OEMs and operators. We have always believed in collaboration over the competition; hence we are extremely welcoming of ideas and collaborations that intend to focus their contributions for the customer benefit and the environment as well.”
When queried if it is open to manufacturing and operating small buses, Mittal says that it is open to ideas but the decision to enter a new segment needs to make economic or business sense.