Piaggio Vehicles is keen on exporting ‘Made-In-India’ electric three-wheelers (e3Ws) to various markets.
Diego Graffi, Chairman & MD, Piaggio Vehicles, told Mobility Outlook that the company is carrying out pilots in a slew of countries which could end up being the first international markets for Piaggio's range of E3Ws. These include Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Nepal and “a few other countries”.
Notably, Piaggio is already exporting its internal combustion engine three-wheelers to more than 50 regions from India. Many of these regions will also be supplied with the E3Ws.
“The only challenge is that most of the countries we wish to export to do not have a clear EV policy like India. We are waiting for the same to be announced,” said Graffi.
Last month saw India post retail sales of 45,664 three-wheelers, up 102.49% from 22,551 3Ws in the same month last year. E3Ws are also doing brisk business and being perceived as the poster boy of India's EV adoption.
Supply Chain Constraints
Piaggio hopes to make over 4,000 E3Ws every month though there are constraints in the form of the supply chain crisis. According to Graffi, had this not been the case, the company could produce much more E3Ws.
“We are trying to localise more components. Though we are well over what FAME II requires (for localisation levels), Piaggio is keen on sourcing more from the country,” he said.
The company says it has sold over 10,000 E3Ws in India since 2019. On the sidelines of its latest Ape FX E3Ws range launch, MoUs were signed to deliver 24,000 E3Ws to existing partners such as Sun Mobility, Three Wheels United, Zyngo, City Link, Amplus Solar, Magenta Mobility, MoEVing, and MBSI.
The running costs per km for the new range, as claimed by the company, are INR 40 Paise for the passenger variant and INR 48 Paise for the cargo version. In terms of the total cost of ownership, this works out to INR 312 and INR 333/day for each of these options, respectively.
Dealership Expansion Spree
With over 100 touchpoints in place, Piaggio is now seeking to expand its footprint to over 400 cities by end-2023. Sudhanshu, Agrawal, EVP, Piaggio, said locations have already been identified for this exercise.
In the B2B space, the company will also expand leasing and financing options. This will happen through collaborations with new partners, running joint projects and customer outreach programmes, and developing new products in sync with its partners.
Piaggio is focusing on increasing the loan tenure from 42 months to 60 months while bringing down monthly installments to levels of INR 9,000. This is part of the endeavour to make ownership easier and more accessible to customers.
Some focus will also be paid to battery-swap capabilities with the company scheduled to announce compliant versions of the newly launched E3Ws soon. Notably, Sun Mobility will be deploying 10,000 Piaggio E3Ws in 14 cities during 2023.
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