New Delhi: The past two years have seen the building up of an electric vehicles (EVs) momentum. While the speed of adoption has been varying among different segments, this year, it seems, the last mile cargo mobility space is catching up in the race.
The 2-3.5 GVW category has become the largest one not only in the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment, but also in the entire CV market. This is currently occupied by six players led by Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Ashok Leyland.
Launched in May 2022, Tata’s Ace EV has been heating up the market. It is the CV maker’s first product featuring its Evogen powertrain, offering a certified range of 154 km. The vehicle allows regular and fast charging capabilities for high uptime, and is powered by a 27kW (36hp) motor with 130 Nm of peak torque.
E-SCV players in last mile mobility
Tata Ace, which had been a market leader in the segment, is now set to see competition from at least two of its peers. In February, Eicher Trucks and Buses, a division of Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles (VECV), showcased its electric SCV at the Bharat Mobility Show 2024. With its commercial launch scheduled for Q1 2025, the vehicle is to begin commercial trials this month.
Vinod Aggarwal, CEO & MD, VECV, said, “This market (SCVs) occupies a very large portion of the overall CV market, at about 3.5 lakh units. So this gives us an opportunity to enter this market size. Within the SCV segment, 2-3.5 T category is growing at the fastest rate. The growth is driven by e-commerce, urbanization, last-mile distribution activities and the hub-and-spoke model concept.”
According to him, the new company’s e-SCV has been developed from scratch on a ground-up platform. It has taken 2-3 years to come up to this stage. To be manufactured in the company’s Bhopal plant, the vehicle will be available in phases, starting the next 3-4 months. Its diesel and CNG variants are expected to follow.
VECV has also partnered with ITC Limited where the latter with its vendor partners will deploy over 100 units of 5.5T EV- the Eicher Pro 2055 for mid-mile transportation from ITC warehouses to customer locations.
Industry leaders and analysts have been pointing out the significance of EV adoption for last mile mobility with the small commercial vehicles (SCV) market (sub-3.5 tonne) which comprises mini-trucks (0-2 tonne gross vehicle weight (GVW)) and pick-ups (2-3.5 tonne GVW). Owing to customer’s shift towards higher payload vehicles, the pick-up category has been recording faster growth.
Last week, Switch Mobility, the EV arm of Ashok Leyland, also began its electrification journey in the cargo segment. The company, which unveiled two light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in the 2-3.5T intelligent electric vehicles (IeV) series in September last year, has rolled out the first IeV 4 from its Hosur plant
Switch aims to manufacture approximately 3,000 units per year, catering to diverse applications like cargo transport, containers, garbage collection, and refrigerated vans. Developed at a project cost of about INR 100 crore, the two electric small trucks IeV3 and IeV4 offer a range of up to 300-km operation in a day (with opportunity charging).
According to Switch Mobility, its IeV series is based on a modular and scalable platform, which has the capability to produce vehicles with payload ranging from 1.2-4.5 tonne. It is enabled with a 330 V high voltage EV architecture in the 2-3.5 tonne CV category.
Chennai-based Murugappa Group’s EV arm Tube Investments of India (TII) is also set to expand its presence in EVs through a series of launches in the coming months. This includes a three-wheeler cargo, rickshaw, tractors and four variants of electric heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs). TII will be introducing EVs through its subsidiary TI Clean Mobility Private Ltd (TICMPL).
Large CVs
Following the trail are the large CVs. At the Bharat Mobility event, Hinduja Group flagship company Ashok Leyland began delivery of its intermediate and heavy duty 14T Boss Electric Truck to its customers including Billion E-Mobility
Another player, Kalyani Powertrain, the electric mobility arm of Bharat Forge, is working on ICE to EV conversion or its ‘Repowering’ business for the retrofitment of existing diesel-powered CVs into EVs in Pune. Retrofitting involves a replacement of the combustion powertrain in a vehicle with an electric driveline.
The company is targeting to electrify medium and heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCVs), to begin with, in the tonnage segments of 7.5 to 16 . The target age group of trucks and buses for conversion “will be five to eight years”.
According to Krishan Kohli, President and CEO of Kalyani Powertrain, the company is trying to keep the cost of the repowered truck to “well within 2X and closer to 1.5X” of its original cost.
“The idea of doing a retrofitted truck is to reduce the carbon footprint by reusing 70-80% of the existing vehicle and giving it a longer life and customize the platform to the duty cycle requirement of the user. It involves less cost and time than a brand new vehicle,” Amit Kalyani, Joint Managing Director, Kalyani Powertrain said.
The repowering business comes from Bharat Forge’s strategic investment of GBP 10 million (about INR 90.30 crore) in Tevva Motors, a British electric powertrain solutions supplier for commercial vehicles. It also holds a minority stake in the company, and has a Board seat, and access to technology.
According to Kalyani, “This is a lot more than what we learned at Tevva. We have created a lot of IP in-house, both on the architecture, the whole system solution in the power electronics control electronics vehicle control unit, and all the BMS packs, motors and converting that into an entire platform.”
Electric trucks will largely depend on affordable batteries to make economic sense. Analysts argue the economic sense of EVs in this segment, and feel that fuel cell or hydrogen-powered vehicles would be the best option.
