EV Startup "Bounce" has eyes to Invest$100mn On Different Facilities Check Out

EV Startup "Bounce" has eyes to Invest$100mn On Different Facilities Check Out

Electric scooter rental startup Bounce is making investment of about USD 100 million over the next 12 months across manufacturing of e-scooters and expanding the battery swapping infrastructure.

Bounce co-founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere said, "We want to make EV mainstream, when we're talking about transition to EVs, we want to make sure millions of vehicles can actually practically look at it and not worry about charging infra, range or battery related issues. We will have two variants and by November-end, we will start pre-booking and deliveries will start February-end," he said.

Hallekere added that the company expects upwards of one lakh vehicles to be booked in pre-bookings. "There will be two types of pricing - one will be with battery and one without battery. I think we should be able to price it under ₹70,000 with battery and without battery, we should be able to price under ₹50,000," he said.

Hallekere said the company has a plant in Bhiwadi, and is now scouting for a second location. "In the first phase, we have a factory in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan with a production capacity of 1.2 lakh scooters per year, and it will create employment opportunities for over 1,000 people in the next 3-4 quarters. The number of people employed currently in the unit is around 100," he said, adding that the investment in the plant for the next 12 months is around USD 25 million. Bounce had bought 22 Motors, including its manufacturing unit in Bhiwadi.

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Hallekere said the company is working on building battery swapping infrastructure for 1-2 million scooters in the next 24 months. Investment in battery swapping infrastructure over the next 12 months will be USD 50-75 million, and a large part of this is being debt financed, he added.

Bounce's e-scooters will be sold online as well as through a network of about 200 dealers. The company is also looking at international sales of its e-scooter. Hallekere said Bounce has already signed an agreement for supplying about 30,000 scooters in Turkey over a period of one year and those will start shipping by March-end.

Customers with batteries will be able to charge the batteries at their homes using the portable charger that would be made available to them. For the without batteries users variant, users will be able to use 'batteries as a service'.

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Bounce is also going to would establish swappable charging stations across the city, with this facility user would be able to go to these stations and swap their batteries and move on.