Bounce, a scooter rental startup, is going to invest about USD 100 million (around Rs 742 crore) over one year in the manufacturing of e-scooters and expanding the battery swapping infrastructure, said its co-founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere.
In an interview with PTI, Hallekere said the company is likely to launch its first e-scooter by the end of the month and deliveries will begin in February 2022,
“We want to make EV mainstream…when we’re talking about the transition to EVs, we want to make sure millions of vehicles can practically look at it and not worry about charging infra, range or battery related issues…We will have two variants and by November-end, we will start pre-booking and deliveries will start February-end,” he said.
Hallekere further said that the company expects more than one lakh vehicles to be booked in pre-bookings.
According to Hallekere, the firm anticipates more than one lakh automobiles to be pre-booked.
The scooter’s price would be slightly more if batteries were included; however, users would be able to charge the batteries at home using a portable charger that would be provided.
For scooters without batteries, customers can use batteries as a service. A bounce would be putting up swappable charging stations across the city, and a customer can go to such stations and swap their batteries and move on.
“There will be two types of pricing – one will be with battery and one without battery. I think we should be able to price it under Rs 70,000 with battery and without battery, we should be able to price under Rs 50,000,” he said.
Concerning manufacturing, Hallekere said a plant is there in Bhiwadi, and the company has started to look for a second location.
“In the first phase, we have a factory in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan with a production capacity of 1.2 lakh scooters per year, and it will create employment opportunities for over 1,000 people in the next 3-4 quarters. The number of people employed currently in the unit is around 100,” he said.
Bounce has purchased 22 Motors, including its Bhiwadi manufacturing facility. The whole 22 Motors crew has joined Bounce, and the acquisition is expected to be for around USD 7-10 million.
While the industry is facing the chip shortage headwind, Hallekere stated that the firm has chalked out a way to meet the demand.
He said building battery swapping infrastructure is underprocessed and for 1-2 million scooters in the next 24 months.
“Since we have a mobility business, we have already built a pretty good network in Bengaluru and Vijayawada and we have already done half a million swaps. Within Bangalore, within two kilometres of anywhere, you are, the network already exists but our idea is to take it to half a km. We have already partnered with most of the petrol pumps…we are working with parking spaces, commercial spaces,” he explained.
Hallekere said nearly 170 such points are there in Bengaluru and by the time the delivery of e-scooters starts, the aim would be to hit the figure of 500-plus.
This battery swapping infrastructure will spread to six cities, including Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
Bounce’s e-scooters will be available for sale, also 200 dealers have been given licenses to sell e-scooters. The company is also eyeing to sell internationally.
“We have already signed an MoU with the company in Turkey…we’re also looking at Latin American companies and African companies. So, we initially give them scooters and technology for battery swapping, the batteries everything comes from us but they set up the infra,” he said.