GreenCell Mobility To Deploy 3,250 Electric Buses Over Three Years

A pan-India shared electric mobility player, GreenCell Mobility (GCM) has announced plans to deploy 3,250 state-of-the-art electric buses (e-buses) in the coming 3 years as part of its B2C business.

The EverSource Capital-backed GrenCell has aggressive plans to launch 750 premium luxury AC e-buses in phase 1 across intercity & inter-state routes that will cover routes in Southern & Western India.

GreenCell Mobility‘s e-bus rollout, envisages the firm building a captive highway charging infrastructure network with 600 DC chargers of 180/240 KW capacity across the country. GreenCell claims that its B2C foray would be one of the largest businesses by any private player in the Intercity/Interstate bus segment.

The company bus operations will be OEM agnostic and orders for the first batch of buses have been successfully placed. These 3,250 e-buses would cover a distance of 6.5 million Kms, resulting in the saving of 2 billion liters of fossil fuel (diesel) and 2.5 million tons of CO2 emission reduction over a lifetime. The e-bus fleet will cater to 75 million passengers every year, as per the company’s claims.

Speaking on the business plans, MD & CEO of GreenCell Mobility, Mr. Ashok Agarwal said, “We are super excited about India’s EV journey and committed to redefining the shared & connected green mobility experience at par with Aviation industry with ‘Aviation-on-Wheels’ concept.”

“Through our eMaaS operations, we will provide a holistic experience with the ‘Advantage Customer’ motto that is driven by high-end digital integration and superior infrastructure,” he added.

In full-service operations, GreenCell mobility claims to be employing 15,000 people in direct and indirect roles. GreenCell Mobility is planning to launch its B2C intercity by the end of this year.

Earlier in February this year, GreenCell announced plans to invest Rs. 400 crores in a consortium of PMI Electro Mobility Solutions, including the acquisition of 49 percent stake, for deploying 350 electric buses (e-buses) across Uttar Pradesh.

While GreenCell’s plans should be welcome news, it is worth noting that Electric buses have struggled to get ff the ground in India so far in any significant numbers. Announcements made between 2018 and 2020 added up to over 4000 buses countrywide by the end of 2021, but a majority of those contracts are delayed, unsigned  or stuck at MOU stage.

If we talk about EV charging infrastructure across highways, the National Highway Authority (NHAI) of India announced its plans to install EV charging stations along the country’s national highways, recently.

NHAI has recognized around 650 properties across 22 states with a combined area of over 3,000 hectares to develop highways infrastructure, according to the reports. Consequently, the authority has already invited bids for 138 sites out of the 650 sites recognized.