Peel Works, a business-to-business player replaces all its fossil fuel-based delivery trucks with electric vehicles. It will procure 100 electric vehicles for the first phase.
Peel Works, a Mumbai-headquartered business-to-business grocery e-commerce company, is in talks with Piaggio, Mahindra, Tata Motors, and Greaves for procuring 100 EVs for its distribution business.
It manages Taikee, a retail management platform, and, Payroll management, Manpower and Logistics as a service platform 1SF.
“We plan to switch completely to electric vehicles. We are currently planning to transport 100 EVs in the first phase of the festival season. “If it goes well, then we will go after more EVs deployment,” Lt Col Pushkar Raj (Retd), the co-founder of the company and head of the supply chain.
Raj stated that the company had managed to recover all costs of switching to EVs within two-and-half years.
Low operating costs will make it possible to recover the high price of EVs, compared to fossil fuel-based. The running cost of EVs is just Rs 1 per km, whereas internal combustion engines (ICE) are between Rs 4 and 5 per km.
The company was already operating in 25 cities and had recently remodelled its business to increase its scale with sustainable economics. Part of the business remodelling process is replacing traditional fossil fuel commercial vehicles with EVs.
The grocery market offers a lot of potentials. The economics must be in place from the very first shipment. Our experience has shown that sweating assets is the key to success in this market. Raj stated that EV fits well in this thinking – low operational cost, low maintenance and a steady alternate delivery model make it a simple decision.
This fleet will be available to traditional shops in time for the holiday season.
It was established in 2010 and has raised over Rs 100 crore from a variety of investors including Equanimity and CESC Ventures, Chiratae and Inventus Capital.