Zoomcar to self-drive into 10 more cities

Plans to increase fleet to 3,500 from the current 1,200 cars

Zoomcar, a Bengaluru-based self-drive car rental company, is looking to enter 10 more cities. 

The company is also planning to triple its fleet of self-drive luxury and automatic cars from the present to 1,200 to 3,500 in the next one year, according to its co-founder Greg Moran. 

Announcing the launch of their service with a fleet of 30 cars in Hyderabad on Tuesday, Moran said the company was in the process of taking this number to 1,000 by the end of this calendar year. 

Zoomcar is currently present in Bengaluru, Pune, New Delhi and the National Capital Region. After Hyderabad, Zoomcar will now launch services in Kolkata in the coming months, he added. 

“The current driver wage escalation in India suggests a decline of the chauffeur-dominated model over the next few years. The compounded effect of decreasing vehicle costs and increasing labour costs means that the percentage cost increase of adding a driver to each trip is going up exponentially. With Zoomcar, the change is on the prowl,” Moran said. 

Zoomcar was founded by David Back and Greg Moran in February 2013 in Bengaluru. Since inception, it had raised $11 million, including $8 million in a venture funding led by Sequoia Capital in October 2014. 

Zoomcar buys 75% of the cars in its networks through loans from banks, while the remaining are leased from large companies like Avis Budget Group. “The funds in hand are sufficient for our expansion. We are not looking at another round of funding at this moment,” he said.