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Mr. Dhivik Ashok, Founder & CEO - GoGreenBOV
About Go Green BOV (Battery Operated Vehicle) Pvt. Ltd:
Go Greenbov (Battery Operated Vehicle) Pvt. Ltd., a leading automobile company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka and established in the year 2011. It's now an integral part of GreenEOT (Energy of Things) with specialization in automotive, producing electronic vehicles with higher battery capacity, Highest Boot Space and are pollution-free. It would not require any license, number plate, or registration.
Go GreenBOV is vertically integrating deep learning and deep-tech in batteries to give a higher yield per vehicle. Driven by a pro-environment consciousness, Go GreenBOV is now a part of Go GreenEOT (Energy of Things) Pvt. Ltd. Intending to transform the way energy is used or seen, the team at Go GreenBOV is continuously striving to come up with innovative solutions. It believes that true innovation can merge automotive transport with energy initiatives and owing to the same; it is committed to search for and build an eco-friendly solution for its loyal consumer segment. Go GreenBOV envisions itself as a facilitator to reboot the energy load by effectively choosing alternative energy sources that ensure maximum profitability, minimized pollution, and a greener planet. It aims to lend nature a helping hand by reducing pollution by one degree every year. A guilt-free ride comes easy to you with this battery-operated vehicle which makes the difference. It will not just be economical but will help the air around us to become less polluted and the world a better place to live in. Plug-in and go for a ride, with no consumption of petrol, no noise and absolutely no pollutant emission in the air. It is mild on your pocket and in the environment we breathe in. It’s a super affordable and highly comfortable 2-wheeler with elegant features and geeky technology which has been introduced to make the world a lot greener and cleaner. Go GreenBov breaks the hazardous chain of pollution and lets the freshness and purity enter.
The two-wheeler has been made with the noble thought of giving back to nature, to make people realize that making use of resources doesn’t mean polluting the environment and disappoint mother nature, so it’s time to bring in the revolution with this single and easy action towards the betterment of our planet. The engines are quieter but the message is and will be louder to the whole world. It comes with an average battery life of 20,000 Kms. and would last even more with proper maintenance. Go Green Battery Operated Vehicles are made to run efficiently, reducing the pressure on the motor. Go GreenBOV believes and feels quite confident that they have the strongest team for electric-vehicles in India. They have nearly 107 years of experience as a team which is commendable. The whole idea is to change the general perspective towards energy usage.
Moving Forward, The company aims to come up with a revolutionary step, which is to introduce WRT battery technology. It would be the first two-wheeler in India to have a liquid-cooled battery pack which is also a part of their IP where they do not use energy from the battery to cool the battery.
Mr. Dhivik A. is the Founder and CEO at Go GreenEOT (Energy of Things), a company at the prime of combing low-cost electric vehicles and technology. Basking in the glory with 11 years of experience in building companies and have been at the helm of Go GreenBOV for the past 9years. An engineer from RVCE (Rashtriya Vidyalaya College of Engineering) Bengaluru, Karnataka. A second-generation entrepreneur, he made his way to Electronic Vehicles back in the year 2009. He is splendidly good with technology, connected vehicles platform, lithium batteries, the energy storage sector, and renewable energy.
So, The Automotive India & Me had the Privilege to interact virtually with Mr. Dhivik Ashok and he shared his valuable insights on my questions.
Please tell us about your vision of expanding GoGreen in the E.V sphere and share with us the key achievements of the company since it's inception?
Since the inception, we have closed to about 96 dealers. All of them are quite happy, except that we pride ourselves being the first ones to have focused heavily on technological advancement in the battery space in the Indian context itself. This stems from the fact that we've been in the EV space since 2009, and we completely understand what can go right and wrong in the EV space. The learning that we've had we did not have to unlearn or relearn. We had the first growth curve because we learned that the lead-acid batteries certainly add a lot of value to us in billing a product made for the Indian market. This also helped us to iron out our supply chain. Since its inception, the company's key achievements: we've been a very forward-thinking company in terms of opportunities and businesses for the taking views. The first ones in 2015 to pave it out from the B2C space onto the B2B space. We also were the first EV company to receive the EV entrepreneur of the year award in 2011. We've received an outstanding performer in the electric two-wheeler category award by a well-known publication house.
What are those Key implementations which in your view shall make the Indian EV Market more competitive to the International EV market & share your global plans?
For us, currently, in the electric two-wheeler industry, we are only looking at the Indian market because we think India has huge market potential. We strongly believe that if a government's financial will by enforcing priority lending by the public and private sector lending banks, we'll take the growth curve from being lesser than 1% at this point of time to about 10% by 2025 itself. This is one of the biggest missing things in the Indian EV context. The financing of EV is a big market, and that is the market that is there up for the taking.
As the EV infrastructure in India is building up at a good pace, what's your outlook towards achieving a reasonable share in the 2-Wheeler EV segment here?
EV infrastructure, especially when it comes to charging and charging infra, India is lagging primarily because there is no consensus between EV manufacturers, the charging standards, the government, and the charging station providers. There is interoperability between an e-two wheeler and three-wheelers using a standard Bharat001 charging socket that does not yield any communication between the host and the receiver. We strongly believe that the pace of deployment in the EV infrastructure is directly proportional to the investments made by the EV investors in the space, especially in the electric vehicle arena.
We strongly believe that charging infra plays a minor part in the two-wheeler market. In the initial few years of being with lead-acid space or even in the lithium space, we believe that close to around 96% of the consumers charge their vehicles at home. This is something that everyone is quite comfortable doing. Today, the way we look at EV is more of an intracity commute vehicle than an intercity commute vehicle. If that thought process is imbibed into a consumer, then there would be no reason why we would have to wait for the EV infrastructure to grow.
Please share your valuable insights on the upcoming EV-Battery and how shall it be superior to other existing EV-2 wheeler batteries?
We as a company have evolved ever since 2009. Our first vehicle though was a disaster. For us to be successful in this space meant a lot more than just surviving. When the urge and the need to succeed comes to an organization is when they start looking at innovations. We as a company and employees are quite keenly focused on the battery space and the connectivity space. A lot of battery experts have gone on to believe in terms of the technology that has been built by us where we were also able to showcase that the technology built by us as being apt even at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas in 2019, whereby we received great appreciation from top tier manufacturers in terms of our engineering capabilities itself. We to date are the only Indian Electric Two Wheeler Company to have showcased our innovations at the CES. There are three key challenges with the battery:
- High or extremely low discharge rates
- High or low temperatures
- Use and abuse during charging of the battery
What are the technical upgrades planned moving forward in the manufacturing of Lithium ion batteries as to make it more cost effective and reduce the overall maintenance cost for owner?
I do not believe reducing lithium battery cost globally would reduce the cost of purchase of an EV. Consumers are comfortably paying around a 20% premium in terms of buying an EV. That trend is going to continue because as days go by and as we have more number of electric-vehicles on the road, the consumer needs and wants from an EV 2Wwill move up the ladder from being an intra-city commute vehicle to an intercity commute. The battery's capacity that needs to go into the electric vehicle becomes extremely important, which leads to a higher range which in turn again increases the cost of an electric vehicle itself. We do not believe in the cost of an e-vehicle coming down because battery prices have gone down. It's an upward trend that we would see as days go by. Talking about an owner's maintenance cost, there is already a 95% reduction in the service and the warranty cost for the consumer itself.
To build a sustainable EV EcoSystem in India, what are your expectations from the Govt. Of India? Do you feel the Govt’s EV Policies and Customer-centric EV subsidies will make more and more people opt for it?
To build a sustainable ecosystem in India, I think the government of India has done very well. They have removed the lower speed vehicles for subsidies which gives an uptake for people wanting to buy high-speed vehicle. The government has done a lot, however, now the manufacturers need to step up their game offering a consumer product which they know stands for quality, performance, and longevity. The only thing according to me that the government of India needs to do is probably put electric vehicles into the priority lending sector by PSU banks which it is currently not. Today when we look at the ICE vehicle market around 68%-70% of vehicles are sold on loans and that is an area that the government of India would need to work hard on of making financial lending of an EV into a priority sector lending.
Two Wheelers in India are the most sought-after mode of private transportation. In Comparison to the ownership cost of Petrol Powered Engine, how much does the long term ownership of a EV-2 Wheeler with your battery will be?
Today when you look at gasoline two-wheelers, it comes with about 20,000kms of warranty but ends up running and lasting for at least for about 2 lakh kms. Primarily, today the batteries whereby manufacturers are giving a 3 year warranty probably is failing at about 3.5 yrs - 4 years. When you do a TCO for a period of 4 years, with an electric vehicle it comes to 0.15ps as against running a gasoline vehicle which is at around Rs.3/-. Therefore, there is a clear cut winner. Now suppose on the 4th year if you would have to replace your batteries, then the cost is anyway around 40,000-50,000 rupees for a good quality battery pack of 1.5kWH-2kWH. Adding even the cost of replacement of the batteries it comes to around 0.40/-ps. Going forward with us, We would be coming out with a battery which lasts has an 8-year warranty on the battery pack. This is something which has not happened with 2Wheelers anywhere in India or Internationally. This further reduces the TCO to a consumer because now a consumer would be able to get well-designed battery pack along with the vehicle, whereby, eight years a consumer doesn’t even have to break his head on warranties and longetivity of battery which is anywhere between 40% - 60% of the total vehicle cost itself.
What are your plans for safe storage & recycling the Lithium-Ion Batteries? Will you also be looking at tie-ups with EV brands across India to boost up the charging infrastructure?
We would not be selling our own charging stations. Although, we would be tying up with majority of the charging station providers where our vehicles can go any of these interoperable charging station booths and probably have it charged there. There are a lot of challenges in terms of storage of lithium-ion batteries and that is an area where we spent extensive time and we’ve been able to perfect even from the art of storing a battery to packaging a battery. We work closely on the complete cycle from the cradle to the grave. Recycling is an area where we’re not into and I presume that this is an industry which should grow post 7-8 years usage of lithium-ion batteries in an EV. We are open and understanding technologies but we’ve not really investing into the recycling of the lithium-ion batteries.
Post Pandemic what are the operational changes incorporated by you to keep the safety of employees & customers at utmost importance?
The pandemic has been a big advantage because consumers stopped using shared mobility and moved on to buying their own vehicle because of the operation costs. At our office, we had maintained a distance of 6ft between each employee. We’ve even given work from home to the employees who are operating on the back-end side. Even at the factory, there is test conducted everyday for handpicked number of employees. Besides the tests, we do conduct the temperature check which is regularly monitored.
The Auto Sector has faced real difficult times with the Covid-19, What are your views about the rebound of Automotive Industry in general and the EV Sector in particular?
It’s been a challenging time. Covid had brought so many uncertainties for every industry. Therefore auto industry was no exception. No what we’ve seen with the covid, especially in the two-wheeler segment, it has been a very strong V-shape recovery until the 2nd wave. Now as we have been exposed to the 2nd wave, the V-shape recovery might end up becoming a W-shape recovery now. EV as an industry has seen a huge growth post the pandemic. Our sales have increased by close to 22% quarter on quarter. Also, the consumers spending power reduced because of which are looking at alternatives to move on to the option that can even serve them more better. In, short the pandemic has accelerated the electric vehicle adoption. WE have moved from 0 dealers pre covid to 36 dealers now and our target of reaching 144 dealers by the end of this fiscal is where we are at and we see strong possibilities for reaching the number much earlier than the end of this fiscal itself; provided the 2nd wave gets wiped out soon.
Regards
Akash