Take-aways for Indian e-mobility startups & investors

by Narasimhan Santhanam

This post is a part of EV Next’s EV Perspectives.

EV Next, a division of EAI, is a leading market intelligence & strategic consulting firm for the Indian e-mobility sector.

Get to know about 1000+ EV innovations from EVI2: Electric Vehicle Innovation Intelligence from EVNext

This post is part of a series titled “Taking India’s E-mobility to the Next Orbit” from EV Next Perspectives. See all posts for this series from here.  See previous post –Indian E-mobility Startup Trends.

Key takeaways for Indian electric vehicle startups & investors

E-mobility is a seductive domain.

Thousands of Indian entrepreneurs are eager to start something in this domain. Hundreds of investors are keen to support them in this journey.

Wouldn’t it be highly productive if this exciting ecosystem is able to strategize effectively and lay a strong foundation for the 2020-2025 period that facilitates remarkable growth post that?

We offer some takeaways that could be helpful for the Indian e-mobility startup and investor ecosystem in evolving such a strategy:

• OPPORTUNITY IS FOR REAL: E-mobility is a real opportunity in India, and the time to get in is now for both startups and investors.
• IDENTIFY LESS RECOGNIZED AND LATENT NEEDS: Find a need that others aren’t catering to and fill it – this is a textbook approach, but it almost always leads to success. We suggest that startups allot time to meet prospective users from relevant segments, have empathetic discussions with them, and integrate insights gained about needs and pain points to their business models, tech or designs. If there’s only one takeaway we would like to leave startups with, this would be it.
• LOOK ALONG THE ENTIRE VALUE CHAIN: Significant startup opportunities may lie outside making electric vehicles, in other parts of the value chain – battery packs, power electronics, other powertrain components, EV charging station components, financing, or even in the downstream of EV value chain (sales & distribution)
• INTEGRATE WITH EXTENDED TECH ECOSYSTEM…: Rather than consider e-mobility as an electrified version of transport, Indian start-ups would do really well to integrate the rest of the mobility & technology trends – especially Shared & Connected Mobility, Micro-mobility, IoT, Big Data & Cloud – to arrive at solutions and business models that provide significant value to specific user segments. India’s expertise in the IT sector would come in especially useful while integrating the above trends.
• …BUT DON’T BE DAZZLED BY TECH ALONE: All said, technology is only an enabler to satisfy needs. If there are significant user needs that can be satisfied by low-tech e-mobility solutions – and our analyses show there certainly are – go for them.
• ESTABLISH PARTNERSHIPS: Startups need to look across the value chain for partners who bring complimentary assets or skills, and with such partnerships, offer a more enriching solution to the end-user
• RESEARCH & LEARN FROM GLOBAL TRENDS: A thorough review and analysis of international trends and innovations, and effective learning from these, will be highly rewarding for startups.

This post is part of a series titled “Taking India’s E-mobility to the Next Orbit” from EV Next Perspectives. See all posts for this series from here.

The complete list of blogs in the series – 

• Taking India’s E-mobility to Next Orbit – The Framework
• International E-mobility Startup Trends
• Indian E-mobility Startup Trends
• Take-aways for Indian e-mobility startups & investors

Learn more on various Status & Trends in E-Mobility across:  Indian EV Prices |  Global EV Market  | Indian EV Market  | Current status of Indian EV Market  | Indian Vehicle Segments | Challenges to Indian E-mobilty  | International Startups Takeaways |

 Get to know about 1000+ EV innovations from EVI2: Electric Vehicle Innovation Intelligence from EVNext