Illustration of Church Street, Bengaluru by Connected Places Catapult made for IfCA Clean Air Street program
Increasing EV uptake and reducing air pollution are crucial, interrelated challenges for cities worldwide. Replacing petrol/diesel cars with electric vehicles could have a hugely positive impact on air quality and health, as well as supporting climate goals.
To address these challenges, in 2019 Energy Systems, Connected Places and Satellite Applications Catapults, with collaborative partners in India (including the Department for Urban Land Transport, Indian Institute of Science and Urban Morph), launched the Innovating for Clean Air project. Led by Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), the project was a two-year initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation and focused on the Karnataka state capital city of Bengaluru.
Increasing EV uptake and reducing air pollution are crucial, interrelated challenges for cities worldwide. Replacing petrol/diesel cars with electric vehicles could have a hugely positive impact on air quality and health, as well as supporting climate goals.
To address these challenges, in 2019 Energy Systems, Connected Places and Satellite Applications Catapults, with collaborative partners in India (including the Department for Urban Land Transport, Indian Institute of Science and Urban Morph), launched the Innovating for Clean Air project. Led by Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), the project was a two-year initiative funded by UK Research and Innovation and focused on the Karnataka state capital city of Bengaluru.
The growth of e-commerce in India has been accelerated considerably by the pandemic, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the gig economy, largely in the last mile delivery sector. Food delivery companies such as Swiggy, Zomato; market places such as Amazon, Flipkart, Grocers such as BigBasket and fashion retailers such as Ajio, Myntra, etc., are all contributing to this growth. The most common mode of transportation for deliveries are fossil fuel based two and three wheelers.
Fuel prices in India are on a continuous rise due to demand along with government policies and participants in the gig economy can directly benefit from the relatively cheaper running costs of electric vehicles (EV). As well as this, there are clear climate change benefits from transitioning to electric mobility solutions. However, higher capital costs (largely due to battery cost), concerns around the service ecosystem, and uncertainty around charge point availability are some of the deterrents/ challenges that are slowing down the transition.
There exists an opportunity for makers of electric two/three wheelers and ancillary service providers to address some of these challenges to accelerate EV adoption in the last mile delivery segment of Tier 1, Tier 2 cities across the country. There are emerging small and mid-sized manufacturers who cater to this segment by providing cost effective designs suited for short distance cargo deliveries. In addition, tech companies are entering the business of battery charging and swapping infrastructure, or its associated technologies and the financing / leasing of electric vehicles. However, there is very limited information on how the whole ecosystem works when together.
ESC, Swiggy and Urban Morph plan to run a test bed to trial new approaches, engage e-commerce companies and gig economy workers to try & buy, learn about gaps that exist in the market, and produce a detailed analysis report that would be useful to further accelerate EV adoption. The panel will also include Directorate of Urban Land Transport, Government of Karnataka. Successful applicants may have the opportunity to work with Swiggy to support electrification of their delivery services in the future.
We would like to invite interested parties (“Innovators”) to come forward with two-wheel Electric Vehicle solutions and technologies to participate in the test bed.
Beyond the vehicle, applicants can bring in associated services like technology, battery swapping and charging systems to the testbed in order to show the solution in totality that will address the daily requirement of the delivery executives. The selected applicant(s) will be responsible for support of their solution during the test bed pilot period. An agreement between Swiggy and successful applicants will be concluded to govern the relationship