BluSmart, a business that owns and runs an all-electric vehicle (EV) fleet on its ride-hailing platform and is competing with Ola and Uber, is now going to explore international waters, according to FE.
“BluSmart wants to trial its operations in the Middle East and has requested drivers to have their passports and other paperwork on hand as it prepares to undertake a feasibility test of overseas markets,” a source close to the company said. “If the firm goes forward with its ambitions, it will only be in 2024. The choice to enter the market is based on the outcomes of the pilot. “The firm was still deciding on its supplier and other finer aspects regarding the venture,” the source said.
The developments at BluSmart come at a time when the company’s domestic business is already facing competition from newer players like Evera, which has raised approximately Rs 60 crore from Germany’s IEG Investment Banking Group and Singapore’s Westova Global, among others, to expand its EV fleet in the country to approximately 2,000 vehicles by the end of the current calendar year,
In the EV ride-hailing industry, where BluSmart is popular, even larger and more established players like Ola and Uber are establishing a presence. After conducting a similar pilot in Nagpur in 2018, Ola announced in January that it was in the final stages of rolling out another pilot program in which it would deploy 10,000 premium electric vehicles (EVs) for users of its cab-booking platform.
A month later, in February, even its main rival, Uber, a global player in the industry, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tata Motors to gradually integrate 25,000 electric vehicles into its platform in cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad.
BluSmart only started operating in the Delhi NCR belt about three to four years ago, and it made its way into some parts of Bengaluru in September of last year. The company’s co-founder Punit Goyal previously told FE that India was a large enough market to solve for and that the company would expand into cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata over the next few quarters.
In order to expand its presence in the city, BluSmart also received regulatory approval to begin operations from the Bengaluru airport last month.
The company with its headquarters in Gurugram currently operates approximately 5,000 electric vehicles across the two regions, exceeding a target it had set for the end of FY23. Over the next 12 to 18 months, BluSmart intends to add about 40,000 to 50,000 EVs. This will likely reduce operating costs from around 1.4 rupees per kilometre to less than 1 rupee per kilometre, which is about 8 to 9 times cheaper than driving a gasoline car on average. The business, which anticipates turning a profit as early as the end of this year primarily on the back of increased demand and charging network monetisation plans, as previously reported, would likely benefit from higher margins as a result. In contrast to Ola and Uber, which operate as aggregators, BluSmart owns all of the taxis that it operates and employs drivers.
At the moment, BluSmart’s fleet consists primarily of Tata vehicles but also includes automobiles manufactured by MG Motors, BYD in China, and SAIC Motor. Goyal said Goodbye’s inventory was a test and that BluSmart was available to secure from any/all unique hardware makers (OEMs) who give vehicles at great costs to the organisation, to fuel its forceful development plans. Around July last year BluSmart additionally said it was amidst raising $250 million, however was at this point to declare the end of its gathering pledges.
