Electric ride-hailing platform BluSmart founder Punit K Goyal has said there’s a big opportunity for his company to become the McDonald’s or a Starbucks of EV charging in India. In a session titled ‘Series C’ at the Master’s Union B-School, Goyal said that his company had the first mover’s advantage in the EV space compared to the incumbent ride hailing platforms.
According to Goyal, most cities have a pressing problem of real estate to build EV charging infrastructure.
“We thought that the first mover advantage is critical. Every city has two unique challenges. They have a lack of prime real estate and they have a lack of energy connections. Buildings are not designed to have extra power load. Every building was designed to have a half a megawatt or a megawatt power load. If we build charging hubs that require, each car is 20 kilowatt battery 22 kilowatt battery, if you bring in 100 cars or 200 cars you need 1 or 2 megawatt power load, which was not there,” Goyal explained.
“You have to bring in energy connection, you have to create the space, you have to utilise the space and there are limited spaces in the city. So, if somebody could take that first move advantage and build the Pret of charging or Starbucks of charging or McDonald’s of charging, that could be a differentiator model. This is exactly what we have set out to do but we need an anchor tenant. So, BluSmart is the anchor tenant here.”
He explained the concept of anchor tenant with examples from the global aviation industry. “To make it easy, I would give you an example of Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines. When the Singapore airport was being designed, it was not designed for Lufthansa or Air India or Japan Airlines or Qantas. It was designed for Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines became the anchor tenant and Changi said ‘okay, I'll give you 30% of my base. 70% of the base could be given to all other airlines’.”
He sees his company’s ride hailing business to similarly support the charging business as the main customer until other companies pick pace.
“When the Delhi-Palam airport was being designed in 1965, there was Air India. No Indigo, no Jet, no Damania, no Sahara, no Indigo, no GoAir, no Vistara, nothing. Nobody was there. No Deccan Airlines, Kingfisher. There was only one airline, which is a national airline and same thing for Heathrow, you can say for British Airways. All infrastructure projects normally are built around an anchor tenant. Could be Zara for a mall, could be PVR-INOX for a mall, could be BluSmart for BluSmart Charge.”
BluSmart Charge has a strong presence in Delhi-NCR, according to Goyal.
“BluSmart Charge will depend on BluSmart fleet to be the anchor tenant till EV adoption really kicks in. Once we see hundreds of EVs on the road these EVs will need charging and because BluSmart is at prime locations in the geographies here. We had Kapashera, we had Nehru Place, we had all the prime locations. People will come there for charging,” he added.
He said that BluSmart has the largest electric fleet in Southeast Asia among ride hailing apps.
“Over the last one-two years, what I am really excited about is the charging infrastructure business. I think we have a huge opportunity to become the McDonald's or Starbucks of charging. And the tech piece which is a born electric tech stack. Now to connect thousands of cars, which are doing millions of kilometers today. We're doing a run rate of about a million plus kilometre a month. We have completed about 11 million trips, we have 5,850 cars, which is the largest fully electric born fleet in Southeast Asia.
BluSmart’s charging infrastructure and the ride hailing service are supported by a tech stack which, according to Goyal, is somewhat similar to the aviation industry.
“We created a born electric text tack which dispatches the car from the hub based on the real time state of charge of the asset, matches a driver with the car, so the driver is available. A driver is shown the car which is fully charged. Driver picks up a fully charged car. He or she goes in the market to serve customers. When the SOC (State of Charge) drops to a certain threshold, the car is off the platform, recalled and the car is routed to the closest charging infra. Just the way airlines operate.”
“The airport traffic control of the ATC and the operator Indigo, say for example base case being Indigo as a use case, the operator on a real time basis is tracking each asset. Once the asset takes off from the airport, the asset is being tracked by the ATC (Air Traffic Control) and the asset is being tracked by the operator. The real time data from the asset is being relayed back to the operator. Even Boeing or Airbus also know where their assets are because they also made the assets, so they have tracking devices. This is the kind of field we want to get to our business model where we track each asset once it departs the hub.”
He also explained how BluSmart’s tech stack is different from Uber’s.
“In the case of Uber, the only way to track is through the consumer's phone or through the driver's phone. And if both go off, Uber has no access to where the asset is. Because the asset was never there. And they're not concerned. All they're concerned about is the driver driving, we got our money and the customer's phone is live. So, they can still figure out where you are because you booked through the app, but if your phone is dead for whatever reason, then the asset is off for Uber. In our case, we have tracking devices installed in the car. So we recall the car back when the state of car, the asset, goes below. This is the sole reason we have been able to do these millions of trips because we're thinking with the born electric text stack approach."
He said that the company had built strong moats. "It's a very important IP that we built in our tech platform. Today, our app has been downloaded 3 million times, the IOS and Android app. The app store rating is fantastic, the consumer love there is fantastic. These are three standalone companies which then report to the holdco (holding company) BluSmart. Each is building massive unparallel moats. The charging infra has its own moat, the ride hailing business has its own moat and the app has its own moat. We are creating this triangle where ride hailing, charging and the tech stack are interconnected.”