Grofers, an online and offline delivery startup, based out of Gurugram, plans to release 500 electric vehicles for its last-mile delivery by the end of 2019. The switch to electric vehicles align with its aim of cutting costs along with using an environmentally-friendly alternative.
Grofers, through its foray into the electric vehicle segment, is looking to register in the list of electric vehicle increasing initiatives. Meanwhile, the central government has been pushing towards the use of electric vehicles.
“Our experiment was largely successful and we were able to reduce the last-mile delivery costs by 50 per cent in places where the EVs were deployed,” ” said Saurabh Kumar, co-founder of Grofers.
Founded in 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers offers products across categories such as grocery, fruits and vegetables. It operates in 13 cities.
Currently, Grofers has 100 EVs in Delhi and 50 in Jaipur, with plans to launch EVs for last-mile delivery in the 13 cities they are present in by the end of 2019.
Grofers is also working with the government to run pilots on four-wheeler EVs which can be used to transport products from the company’s warehouses to distribution centres in the cities.
Flipkart announced last month that they will replace 40% of their delivery fleet with electric vehicles.
As for Grofers, the firm which raised $220 million from SoftBank Vision Fund and other investors in May, has been eyeing profitability.
Some of the significant online grocery startups in India includes BigBasket, Pepperfry, Zop Now, Amazon Now, Godrej nature’s basket, etc.