Dhairya Gupta, Founder and CEO, Earth Ride

Updated with two questions from our readers

Dhairya Gupta, Founder and CEO, Earth Ride in an exclusive interview with Climate Samurai shared about the company, the idea behind, road-map and more, here is the excerpt :-

Thank you Dhairya for your time, please share with our readers about Earth Ride

Earth Ride has been started with the idea of enabling the working class of the country to get mobile, earn a living without negatively impacting the environment.

Our goal is to reduce vehicular pollution in the country by enabling the adoption of electric vehicles. At the same time, we increase the income of our customers by providing with e-mobility solution which reduces their cost of ownership and also provides them with avenues of increasing their income.

What propelled you to come with a Electric Vehicle Leasing Company, what was the idea behind?

The Goal I set for myself for 2019 was: “My biggest resolution is to start my journey toward solving the global warming problem. The world is facing a huge crisis in terms of environmental degradation and sustainability of the current way of life. However, the environmental considerations has to be in sync with aspirations of millions of Indians who want to live better lives, which often comes at cost of higher carbon footprint. Finding a solution for the same is going to be challenging and interesting.”

This is what I wrote to my Alma Mater Babson College

Are you looking for partners to share costs developing a ecosystem ? So far how many corporate or delivery partners do you have?

Electric Vehicle ecosystem is at a very nascent stage and all players have to come together to make it work. We should not only share costs but also develop ideas together and collaborate for mutual success of the entire ecosystem.

We have 7 delivery partners and 2 large corporates.

How do you rank the readiness of Indian auto component players as well the market for the booming EV market?

India’s Auto component ecosystem is pretty well developed to cater to ICE powered automobiles. However, when it comes to EV’s the technology is completely different. Largest cost and key success metrics for EV’s is the battery. Right now there are a few people doing assembly of Lithium Ion Cells into batteries but the scale is very small. We might have lost war in ICE automobiles by not becomes a technology leader in the field, but this EV’s can be a great starting point and develop technologies and then the auto component manufacturing ecosystem.

Did this year’s Auto Expo helped in adding up to government’s dream of having all electric vehicle by 2030.

Auto Expo 2020 belonged to EV’s. There were big and small manufacturers and most concepts displayed were based on EV platforms. However, expecting all vehicles to be electric by 2030 might be a little far fetched dream. We still have bullock carts in this country. The share of V’s would definitely rise and create new markets but ICE vehicles are gonna stay for a long time

One of the biggest reasons for EV push is the environment, but environmental experts believe electric vehicle batteries are the biggest polluters and without proper handling and recycling policies this could be more hazardous, share your views.

Yes, electric vehicle batteries are not the cleanest. But is the alternative? How many times we have heard of oil spills killing millions of marine animals. Doing to ‘Wells-to-wheels’ analysis, Electric Vehicles are way more cleaner than fossil fuel fired vehicles over it’s lifetime. Also, spent EV batteries can be re-used for storage purpose. So once, the battery is spent in your car, you can use it to store solar energy during the day time and use the free electricity to watch your favorite movie on your TV at night. Technologies are being developed to increase the use of batteries and once they are past their life, for eco-friendly disposal.

Technologies you admire the most?

Electrons make magic. I love mechanical energy but it’s difficult to manipulate. It requires complex systems to use mechanical energy effectively. In EV’s all you have to do is control the current. For e.g. In high end 4×4 SUV’s it takes very complex electromechanical systems to turn each wheel independent to each other and even then there are restrictions. However, is all four wheels had their own motor, it would be much easier to control them independent of each other. You could provide maxium torque to one motor while none to others.  

What is your 10-year plan and how do you see EV leasing market shaping up in coming years?

At Earth Ride, we want to fundamentally transform the two-wheeler industry. We would have a large electric cab fleet, might develop an electric vehicle of our own or doing something we have not envisaged so far. In such a dynamic world, having a 10 year plan isn’t feasible or recommended.

What is the level of inventory that you are sitting on? When do you see the end demand recover?
We have some inventory but it’s moving fast.

Your views on the Budget 2020

I believe the government could’ve done better with better EV policy. Otherwise good for startups.

What type of electric vehicles do your company provide on lease, is there any criteria to select these electric vehicles?

We lease Electric Two Wheelers right now and plan to get into Electric 3 Wheelers soon. We are looking at use cases for them and products to address those use cases.

Criteria is that they should fit the use case since it’s a B2B application. Key metrics are – reliability, range.

So far from which companies you have sourced the vehicles from

Right now we are sourcing from Hero Electric. We are also in talks with other manufacturers and testing their products