India: GreenCell Mobility to deploy over 1,200 electric buses

Indian electric bus operator GreenCell Mobility has announced plans to deploy over 1,200 electric buses in the country. The company will commission these electric buses as part of a government tender.

Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), a government entity, has awarded GreenCell Mobility an order to deploy 1,222 electric buses for public transport on a Gross Cost Contract (GCC)/wet lease model. The company will operate 472 of these electric buses across six cities in Madhya Pradesh, a state in Central India.

GreenCell Mobility will deploy the remaining 750 electric buses in Andhra Pradesh, a state on the country’s southeastern coast. The company plans to operate them in eleven cities: Amravati, Anantapur, Guntur, Kadapa, Kakinada, Kurnool, Nellore, Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Vijayawada, and Vishakhapatnam.

VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a joint venture between Volvo Group and India’s Eicher Motors, will supply the 472 electric buses that GreenCell Mobility plans to operate in Madhya Pradesh. It has yet to disclose the specifics of this lot. GreenCell Mobility will procure the 750 electric buses for Andhra Pradesh from EKA Mobility. The electric bus operator has ordered 129 units of the EKA 9M nine-metre model with a range of 180 km and 621 units of the EKA 12M twelve-metre model with a range of 250 km.

CESL awarded the new order to GreenCell Mobility under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)’s PM E-Bus Sewa Scheme, an initiative to deploy 10,000 electric buses for city bus services in 169 cities with a population of less than four million across India. MoHUA estimates this scheme would cost 576.13 billion rupees (approx. 6 billion euros) and is implementing it on a public-private partnership (PPP) model. The central government is supporting it with an outlay of 200 billion rupees (approx. 2.1 billion euros).

Currently, GreenCell Mobility has a fleet of over 1,200 electric buses in India, including 900 units serving intra-city routes. On inter-city routes, the company has deployed 300 electric buses under its in-house NueGo brand and operates 50 units for the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC). Additionally, it operates more than 270 charging stations to support its large and expanding fleet.

Source: Information per e-mail, greencellmobility.com