Bigbasket aims to increase EVs in delivery fleet by 10-20 times in a year

Online grocery platform Bigbasket on Friday said it is planning to increase electric vehicle-based delivery feet by 10-20 times within a year.

Currently, the e-commerce firm claims to have 150 electric vans and 50 electric bikes and "plans to increase the numbers to 1,000 vans and 2,000 bikes within the next one year".

"Bigbasket has always been committed towards carrying out its processes in a sustainable manner. Apart from undertaking other environment-friendly initiatives, we were the first to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) for our last-mile delivery operations in 2016," K B Nagaraju, chief customer experience officer of Bigbasket, said.

Through EVs, Bigbasket has been able to lower its delivery costs, the company said in a statement.

"The company pushes for increasing usage of electric vehicles and bikes for its end-to-end last-mile delivery operations," Bigbasket said.

Bigbasket said it first introduced Mahindra's e-Supro, an electric vehicle, in 2016 for operations in Delhi-NCR.

Over the years, Bigbasket has worked with multiple original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of e-vans such as Gayam Motors and Euler Motors and certified them for their operations. The company is also introducing e-bikes from brands including Hero, Okinawa, Li-on, and Greaves Cotton in its operations, the statement said.

"Though there has been a significant push for EVs in this year's Budget, there is a need to address the issue of bank finance to OEMs and small transporters and individual buyers as long as the vehicles are used for commercial transportation," Bigbasket said.

Bigbasket's operations has expanded to 26 cities in India recording about 2.5 lakh customer orders per day and it claims to serve a registered customer base of 15 million.