Electric Vehicle Startup PURE EV Provides PPE for its Dealers to Safeguard against COVID-19

Electric Vehicles Startup PURE EV is providing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to its dealers to protect themselves against the spread of COVID-19. In addition, the startup has also taken initiatives to help the dealers financially. It is offering special discounts for its existing dealers and new ones interested in joining the Electric Vehicles revolution.

PURE EV is sharing PPE Kits with Hand Sanitizers, Protective Gloves, Protective Mask, Personal Protective Suit and a Face Shield to its dealers. It currently has 72 touch point spread across 13 States with plans to expand to 200 Dealers by November 2020.

PURE EV, which raised funding at a valuation of USD 35 Million some months ago, was incubated by IIT Hyderabad, launched its high-speed electric scooter 'EPluto 7G' in February 2020. It has established a 40,000-sqft state-of-the-art facility, co-located with IIT Hyderabad, for cutting-edge R&D and for large scale production of electric vehicles and electric batteries.

Speaking about the measures to help dealers financially, Mr. Rohit Vadera, Chief Executive Officer, PURE EV, said, "PURE EV dealer margins are around 12 per cent and were already among the best in EV 2W segment. With these discounts, the margins are enhanced to 15 to 18 per cent for a limited period (up to 31st May 2020). These higher margins are need of the hour for our existing dealers and prospective dealers to ensure that they stay profitable and encouraged to pass on benefits to the consumers through better discounts and incentivize their switchover to a pollution-free mode of transport."

PURE EV is continuously working towards supporting its dealers' sales and to help the consumer meet their requirement with various required strategic tie-ups. It has established tie-ups for financing with major firms including Bajaj Finserv, IDBI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Pine Labs and Zest Money to extend EMI facilities across the geographical spread.

Elaborating on the additional measures to help dealers and encourage people to convert to EVs, Dr. Nishanth Dongari, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and Founder, PURE EV, said, "PURE EV has been continuously working on price reductions on all models with the help of in-house manufacturing of high-quality Lithium Battery, and strong product design team who collaborate with various suppliers to fabricate critical components at affordable costs. We have 70 per cent indigenous content in terms of the value addition, and this factor is supporting the favourable unit economics, although import duties have been increased by 10 per cent since 1st April 2020, and rupee also depreciated by 10 per cent."

The company has also launched third party-backed extended warranty schemes to give additional comfort to its customers for their comprehensive warranty coverage for three years. This also meets the key concerns of prospective customers about product reliability in the longer term.

In another major initiative, PURE EV is extending its warranty and is now offering a 70 per cent performance warranty for the batteries for the tenure of three Year or 30,000 km for EPluto and three years or 40,000 km for EPluto 7G, two years for the electric cycles, three years or 24,000 km for ETrance. The other major components that are covered under the warranty of one year are controller, charger and motor, which are planned to be extended to three years.

Additionally, the company has increased the colour variants for existing models. EPluto 7G shall be available in six colour variants viz Red, Blue, White, Silver Grey, Matt Black and Glossy Lemon Sting. The electric bicycle Etron+ shall also be available in five colours viz Glossy Black, Orange, Blue, Green and Yellow.

PURE EV was founded in 2016 by Dr. Nishanth Dongari, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and is led by Mr. Rohit Vadera, an alumnus of IIT Bombay. The startup will continue to collaborate with R&D laboratories of IIT Hyderabad, which will provide strong technological support.

The unique points of the vehicles developed by PURE EV include:

Ø The batteries are designed to work under tough environmental conditions,

Ø Portable batteries for easy charging and swapping, and

Ø The mechanical design suiting Indian terrain conditions