Chennai, Oct 27 (IANS) Initially targeting the e-commerce and online grocery companies, electric vehicle maker Kinetic Green Energy & Power Solutions Ltd has come out with a three-wheeler cargo carrier with a payload capacity of 500 kg priced at about Rs 2.5 lakh, said a top company official.
“Presently the last mile delivery is being done by diesel powered three wheelers or light commercial vehicles. But this is changing as higher number of home deliveries are happening due to Covid-19. E-commerce companies are looking at electric vehicles for logistics as per our research,” Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Founder and CEO, told the media on Tuesday via video conference.
Unveiling the company’s one ton gross vehicle weight (GVW) model Kinetic Safar Jumbo, Motwani said the cargo carrier has a capacity to carry 500 kg and is priced at about Rs 2.5 lakh post FLAME II subsidy.
She said the vehicle comes with a fully covered steel body to carry different kinds of cargo.
“The vehicle is built on a new platform developed ground-up. With higher level of local content the vehicle price has been kept lower than the conventional diesel powered three wheelers,” she said.
According to Motwani, the battery and other critical components have a three year warranty.
The distance range per battery charge is about 120 km and it takes about two-and-a-half hours for a full charge, she said.
“The commercial launch of the vehicle will be in November. Over the next 6-8 months we are targeting sales of about 5,000 units of this model. In January 2021, a vehicle with battery swapping technology will be launched and in March 2021 models for other types of cargo will be launched,” Motwani said.
She said Kinetic Green sources batteries from domestic players and expects the price of batteries to come down further once the demand for the electric vehicles picks up.
The company is also planning to expand its dealer network from the current number of 175 once the vehicle finance tie-ups are firmed up across all the dealerships.
“We plan to add 50-75 dealerships per year. The break even point of dealers is low as they have to stock lesser number of vehicles,” Motwani said.
–IANS
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