Triton Electric Vehicle has announced that the company is planning to assemble Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECV) that can match the unique requirements of the Indian conditions. The company is also looking at introducing its patented technology that can transform electric vehicles feeding power for domestic consumption during power cuts.
Gujarat As The Manufacturing Base
Speaking to Mobility Outlook, Himanshu Patel, CEO & Founder, Triton Electric Vehicle, said the company has zeroed in on a location in Gujarat, where he hails from. In an existing factory that was idle for some time, the company plans to set up its assembly operations to make ECVs and create an ecosystem for the suppliers to set up shops to support manufacturing vehicles.
Patel said the company will make the announcement soon as it is actively involved in the last round of negotiations with an existing vehicle maker in the state. Last year, the company had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). Both the firms are working on manufacturing Lithium-ion battery cells in India, which at present depends entirely on imports to meet its Lithium-ion cell requirements.
There is a huge possibility that BEL and a few other vendors will be setting up an electric vehicle manufacturing ecosystem in the state where Triton will invest more than INR 2,100 crore in the facility, he said.
Patel mentioned that “the combined project cost, with all the stakeholders included, will be around INR 16,000 crore. We will make the official statement about the other stakeholders this month.”
The company claims to be in the process of raising additional funds for the same. It is also working on establishing its R&D base in India. As pointed out by Patel, the company’s next step after trucks will be launching electric three-wheelers in the country.
Focus On Commercial Vehicles
“The focus is on building electric trucks and other commercial vehicles. This is because the conditions are very predictable in the case of commercial vehicles. We already have non-revocable orders for delivering more than 27,000 trucks,” said Patel. It may be recalled that Triton had first showcased an 18-wheeler electric truck in October 2020. It was claimed at the launch that this truck could tow 220,000 pounds.
By predictable, he meant that CV fleet operators follow a certain pattern with a defined route and schedule. The idea is to simultaneously work on establishing charging stations on these routes so that the initiative becomes a win-win for the vehicle maker and the operator.
Taking a cue from the mining industry, Patel said the fleet operator follows a predefined route, and all the company needs to do is commission the charging infrastructure at the vantage points, where the trucks wait for longer times. The same goes for trucks operating around ports and those supporting the logistics network.
Triton will be introducing electric trucks with a capacity starting from 2.5 tonne onwards. However, the USA-headquartered company does not plan to export these vehicles back to the US. Instead, it will concentrate on India, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Powering Home
Patel said the biggest challenge the country faces is fulfilling the energy demand of EVs during peak hours. Usually, the majority of the people using EVs return home at around 7pm and plug their vehicles for charging, which will spike the peak demand further. However, he claims that the system - Power HomeLink, developed by the company, will enable EVs to power the homes instead.
“Power HomeLink-enabled EVs do not draw power; instead, they power back home if they have excess power,” he quipped. The technology has been developed based on the peak demand theory and supports the power demand as many power DISCOMs charge different rates for electricity units in peak and non-peak hours. As calculated by Triton’s team, the peak demand in India is between 3pm and 10pm, he said. The technology enables the car to automatically switch back to charging mode once the peak hour is over, as the system can be synced with peak power and non-peak power hours of any locality.
“We own the patent, but we will now start to licence the technology to others as well,” he added.
Supply Chain
The Triton team is certain that it will not be importing anything from China. Instead, the company claims to be working on setting up a supplier network for everything it needs in India.
“We are making sure that we produce all the components, including electronics, here in India. I strongly believe that if we can keep our capital rotating within India, the economy will grow faster. We want to start offering at least 95% localised electric vehicles by next year,” he signed off.