Meet Visakh Sasikumar, CEO & Co-founder, Fyn Mobility. Visakh is the man behind India’s first vertically integrated EV-as-a-Service platform for last-mile logistics and commute applications. He gets alongside EVMechanica to share his company’s vision, offering, sectors the company is focusing on and a lot more interesting insights in the below-edited excerpts.
What fleets are availed by Fyn Mobility (two, three etc) and the USP of the company?
Our smart fleet currently consists of low-speed 2-wheeler for easy commute & mobility and high-speed 2 and 3-wheelers for last-mile logistics catering to multiple segments such as grocery, food delivery, e-commerce, couriers and more. We aim to make all delivery fleets smart EV fleets by 2025.
Our USP is the vertically integrated business model with a tech-enabled platform that makes EV deployments highly efficient with increased driver retention.
Capabilities of Fyn Mobility to help customers in their entire fleet.
Currently, the logistics industry is traditional and has a lot of interdependencies among vendors leading to a lack of efficiency and no transparency in the overall process. We are rede-fyn-ing logistics, with the help of our EV ecosystem platform. We are able to bring our partners, clients as well as our vendors on the same platform to be able to track real-time demand and also get timely updates on the status of fleet deployments, along with cross-utilization of the EVs.
This not only realistically sets the right expectations with the stakeholders but will also enable our clients to make better decisions and reap higher revenues in the long run.
Which sectors have Fyn Mobility working closely with and also key clients if you can name them?
Fyn over the one year of running its Last-mile logistics has powered the fleets of various delivery agglomerate sectors such as e-commerce, groceries, quick-commerce, food delivery, couriers, pharmaceutical industries and more. Some of our marquee clientele includes everyday household names such as Big Basket, Amazon, Flipkart, Eatfit, and Bluedart among others with whom we have completed 1 million + deliveries to date.
Govt’s push and incentives to promote the EV sector, what is more, needed in the FAME policy to woo the EV sector at large?
With the adoption of EVs reaching an all-time high there will be newer policies that will come into place to help shape up the Indian EV ecosystem. We can expect an extension of subsidies for EVs in the FAME III policies, such policies will also be more focused towards indigenous manufacturing of batteries & EV components giving companies and startups larger incentives and subsidies to set up their plants in India.
Policies for charging infrastructure will also be set in place to cater to the rapid increase in the sales of EVs. Make in India campaigns for batteries & EVs will see a rise with a push to manufacturing components such as Magnet-less motors (as China is the front runner of Motors since they have the highest concentration of resources & production for the manufacturing of such motors). We could also see new policies being set around the adoption of fuel cells as well which would enable India to be a captive manufacturing hub for EVs.
Expansion plans of the company and the ahead strategies.
While 2022 was our base foundation-setting year where we worked towards bringing our stakeholders, partners and team onto our EV ecosystem platform and also enabled our fleets with IoT to turn them into smart fleets. We will now focus on our goal to cross-utilize these EVs with the help of Data tracked on our dashboard to achieve maximum efficiency of these fleets and each EV. We believe with the cross-utilization of EVs the overall EV ecosystem will become a sustainable one in the long run.
What challenges do you foresee in the current and future model of EV-as-a-Service?
There are several challenges that may arise in the current and future models of electric vehicles (EVs) as a service.
- Limited infrastructure: One of the main challenges is the limited infrastructure for charging EVs. In order for EVs to be a viable fleet substitution for IC engine vehicles, there needs to be a sufficient number of charging stations available.
- Range anxiety: Many people are hesitant to switch to EVs because of concerns about their range and the availability of charging stations. This is known as “range anxiety.” To alleviate this concern, it will be important for EVs as a service providers to have a complete understanding of their EVs and accordingly deploy vehicles according to their use case.
- Battery performance: Another challenge is the performance of the batteries in EVs. Some companies are concerned about the lifespan, safety and durability of EV batteries, this can be tackled by understanding battery tech of the EVs being deployed for logistics.
- EVs for India: While China is currently the front runner for EV manufacturing, we need to have indigenous EVs for the Indian environment made in India which will not only make these vehicles ideal for the Indian logistics but also cut down the dependencies on other countries for raw materials and further reduce the TAT for them.
Overall, addressing these challenges will require a combination of technological innovations, infrastructure development, and policy changes
Key trends to shape the Indian EV sector in 2023?
2022 has already seen quite a few new trends in the Indian EV ecosystem through innovative partnerships between EV startups, battery & component manufacturers and also OEMs. A few examples of the same are: the introduction of fast-charge enabled EVs, IoT integration of EV fleets, and process improvement for manufacturing & design of batteries within India which has been possible owing to the extended regulations from the FAME II policy set by the Indian government.
In the coming year, we can expect the batteries to be safer with better design and manufacturing technology as well as the introduction of smart BMS (Battery Management System). We could see a few newer battery tech such as Sodium Ion batteries enter the markets. Another major trend will be to turn fleets smart with the help of IoT and technology that will help with better decision-making for businesses using EV fleets.
