How India is Driving the EV Revolution with Cheap and Cheerful Models?

Salutations, Olio aficionados! 👋

Happy Hump Day and welcome to the 63rd edition of Weekly Olio - your trusty source for giggles, wisdom, and a dash of intrigue courtesy of our tantalizing thought piece (yes, buckle up for Publisher's Parmesan). 🧀

The Quote󠀢 💭

The Tweet 🐦

A few days back, Zillow announced the acquisition of Follow Up Boss (FUB) - a CRM system for realtors for $500M. This thread is the story of an overnight success twelve years in the making. Raising zero outside funds and constantly listening to customers allowed FUB to become the default CRM for realtors. Read the full thread for their story.

The Infographic 💹

Learning multiple languages is a fun way to exercise the brain. This infographic, by The Economist, tells you how easy or difficult it is for an English speaker to master a new language. Predictably, Latin script based languages like French and Spanish are the easiest while hieroglyph based languages like Mandarin are the toughest.

The Short Read 📝

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 - by MIT Technology Review

Every year, multiple new breakthrough research come out of labs and impact human life. This is a collection of the ten most impactful technologies of 2024. With the massive consumer focussed launches, generative AI leads the pack.

Apart from AI, significant breakthroughs have been made in solar energy, computing and weight loss therapies. Read on for a full deep dive on how each field has evolved. More than an article, this is a compendium of primers on some of the advanced technical breakthroughs of 2023.

The Long Read 📜

How Group Chats Rule the World - by Sophie Haigney

Sophie Haigney is a critic and journalist who writes about visual art, books, technology, and other things. She writes frequently for The New York Times, and has also contributed to The New Yorker, Harpers, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Slate and lots of other publications.

The article explores how group chats have become ubiquitous and influential in the modern world. It examines how group chats are used for various purposes, such as sharing jokes, memes, news, gossip, support, or even plans for an insurrection. It also analyzes how group chats shape our identities, relationships, and politics, and how they pose challenges for privacy, security, and moderation. The article argues that group chats are not just a form of communication, but a way of life.

Publisher’s Parmesan 🧀

How India is Driving the EV Revolution with Cheap and Cheerful Models?

India is not usually the first country that comes to mind when we think of electric vehicles (EVs). The nation is known for its chaotic traffic, poor air quality, and reliance on fossil fuels. But things are changing fast.

India is emerging as one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic EV markets in the world, thanks to an abundance of affordable and attractive new models.

According to BloombergNEF, sales of passenger EVs in India rose to 75,000 in the nine months through September 2023 — that’s more than double the volume during the same period last year.

While their share of the total market remains small at 2.4%, a closer look at the underlying trends highlights an important insight for EV makers hoping to make inroads in India:

~86% of all the electric cars sold this year were priced under $20,000. Many of them were introduced this year, including the cheapest — MG’s Comet mini car that sells for less than $10,000. Tata Motors’ best-selling Tiago compact EV accounted for 39% of EV shipments and retails for around $10,500. Deliveries of the model started early this year.

These low prices are crucial for attracting customers in a price-sensitive market like India, where most people cannot afford expensive luxury cars. About 69% of cars sold in India last year were priced below $15,000, while 27% cost less than $10,000. Top-selling combustion-engine models such as Suzuki’s Swift and Wagon R retail for less than $8,000.

Offering EVs at similar prices has helped automakers secure demand from private customers, especially from those commuting to their offices in India’s urban markets. Because of low operating costs, battery-powered cars are also popular among ride-hailing and taxi companies.

The surge in demand has sparked promises to produce more EVs locally. Automakers have committed nearly $5.4 billion in investments to set up or expand their EV manufacturing facilities in India, data from BloombergNEF shows. Pledges have come from domestic players Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra but also Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia. Vietnamese EV startup VinFast recently disclosed plans to set up an EV manufacturing facility in the country by 2026. The government will subsidize some of this capacity, as part of its efforts to reduce India’s reliance on imports for key EV components.

India’s EV ambitions are not limited to passenger cars. The country is also a global leader in electric two- and three-wheelers, which account for more than 90% of its 2.3 million electric vehicles. These include motorbikes, scooters, and rickshaws, which are widely used for personal and commercial transportation.

Over half of India’s three-wheeler registrations in 2022 were electric, according to an IEA report released in April. These vehicles are cheaper, cleaner, and more convenient than their gasoline counterparts, and have benefited from supportive policies and incentives from the central and state governments.

India’s EV market is still nascent and faces many challenges, such as inadequate charging infrastructure, high battery costs, and consumer awareness. However, the country has a huge potential to become a major player in the global EV industry, given its large and growing population, rising income levels, and increasing environmental concerns.

India’s EV revolution is driven by cheap and cheerful models that cater to the needs and preferences of its masses, rather than by flashy and expensive ones that appeal to the elites. This is a lesson that other emerging markets can learn from, as they seek to electrify their transport sectors and reduce their carbon footprints.

Olio Jobs 💼

• Asva Venture | Remote India - Investment Analyst

• OutSystems | Portugal - Senior UX/UI Designer

• Substack | Remote - Product Manager

• Greenlight | Remote Atlanta - Product Manager

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Peeyush and Mohit

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