Oye! Rickshaw, a fast-growing EV mobility player in India, completes a year of delivering goods, completing over 10.9 million deliveries.
What started to sustain the driver partners’ livelihood during the first lockdown has grown to become an independent business.
It is fulfilling about 40-45 percent of daily deliveries across its client set, Oye! Rickshaw has worked with BB Daily, Dealshare, Grofers, Ninjacart, City Mall, and Jio Mart.
The company has saved close to 320,000 kgs of greenhouse gas (GHG) via its delivery business during this period.
Managing B2B deliveries for large e-commerce and e-grocery platforms has made Oye! Rickshaw, an end-to-end solution for businesses and end-users for their first-last mile connectivity needs.
The sustainable mobility solution
Oye! The rickshaw was founded in January 2017 by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi alumnus Mohit Sharma and National Institute of Technology (NIT), Allahabad alumnus Akashdeep Singh.
The startup brings together public transport commuters and drivers of e-rickshaws on one platform, intending to provide transparent and quick fulfillment of last-mile transport needs. The startup is one of the fastest-growing micro-mobility companies in the country.
More than 5 million rides are transacted on Oye! Rickshaw yearly. Oye! Rickshaw received Series A funding from Matrix Partners, Chiratae Ventures, Pawan Munjal and Xiaomi. It operates in five Indian cities and enables drivers to do deliveries on their e-rickshaws and avail battery swapping services.
The need for e-rickshaws
As per the World Economic Forum study, demand for the urban last-mile connectivity will increase 78 percent by 2030, further leading to 36 perent more delivery vehicles in the world’s top 100 cities.
It will lead to an increased amount of carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030 without effective interventions. The report further reveals that CO2 emission will reach around 25 million tons by the end of the next decade if this continues.
Besides this, India’s e-commerce festive season sale from October 15 to November 15 in 2020 delivered $8.3 billion (about Rs 58,000 crore) worth of gross sales for brands and sellers, rising 65 percent from USD 5 billion (Rs 35,000 crore) in the year 2019, says a report from RedSeer pointing towards immediate sustainable intervention in the sector.
Since its inception, Oye! has reduced 949 tonnes of GHG, which is equivalent to planting 4.5 Mn trees, with 15 Mn e-km.
The eco-friendly way ahead
E-rickshaws have been proved to be a successful form factor for deliveries, catering to about 33 percent fossil fuel guzzling vehicle load.
The average per kilometer operating cost of e-rickshaws is considerably lower than that of two-wheelers, with weight and volume carrying capacity being five times that of bikes.
Passenger e-rickshaws can carry about 500 kg of load within a radius of 25-30 km when covered with zip-locked covers.
Oye! Rickshaw is providing a shared mobility platform for consumers that complements public transportation.
“We pivoted during the first lockdown and started doing deliveries of essential goods. We are not just providing vehicles to enable delivery, but delivery as a service. I am overwhelmed with the way our employees transformed our product, making our fleet ready for B2B, B2B2C, and B2B2B deliveries,” said Co-founder and CEO Mohit Sharma.
E-rickshaws, today, is the fastest-growing segment within mobility, aided by the government’s incentives for drivers and rising aspirations of a digitally connected India.
With delivery as one of our three verticals of business, we have witnessed a turnaround in the approach and behavior of our driver-partners as well.
