Bhupendra Kumar Modi on Friday announced his entry into electrical vehicle industry under the brand ‘Smart Dreams’ and unveiled first of its kind electic bus manufacturing facility at ModiCiti (Next to Moradabad).
“ I have a dream to see a healthy and happy India. We plan to enter public transportation through e-bus and e-taxi with pure-electric offerings,” said the Indian entrepreneur now based out of Singapore.
“ We are in talks with different state transport corporations of it use and we have offered two pure-electric buses to Delhi Government for free trial in March. These buses are currently being tested on a commercial route pre-allocated by the Delhi Transport Corporation,” he added.
“After the report is out and shared with other State transport corporations, we hope to get orders in large numbers. We start with at least 50 per cent of localisation which can be increased up to 75 per cent in the next 5 years,” he said
When asked about the investments on the e-vehicle vertical, he said the group has already invested `200 crore in a factory in Singapore.
“We already have a plant in ModiCiti in Uttar Pradesh and there could be more plants in the future,” he said, adding that the overall investments in the long-run could go up to $1 billion without sharing a timeline.
In the initial phase, the company would roll out electric buses and taxis from the ModiCiti facility and later will also look at rolling out electric passenger cars.
“We are focusing on metro and smart cities in the initial phase to cater to public transport. later, we can also look at passenger vehicles too,” Modi said.
For the electric vehicles business, the group has tied up with BYD (Build Your Dreams) – the world’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer.
BYD Auto, Managing Director of Asia Pacific liu Xueliang, said: “India is a big market for us, and with the business environment being favourable we feel it is the right time for us to capture the e-vehicle market of the country. We are proud to collaborate with Smart Group in this endeavour in India.”