For many employees of Indian IT giant Wipro, the daily commute begins not with the roar of an engine, but rather the low humming of one. Close to 120 of the three thousand cabs Wipro contracts for the transport of its employees, after all, are electric. While Wipro’s electric fleet is but a drop in its transportation ocean, the company is keenly aware of the benefits—more specifically, as a company representative wrote to The Ken in an email, a 4-5% cost saving since they incorporated electric cabs in November 2018.
Charged up
All-electric cab operator Lithium wants to supercharge India’s corporate commutes
Five-year-old Lithium boasts of big names like Google, Wipro, and Barclays among its clients. Despite the success, India’s largest EV fleet operator hasn’t reached its full potential
Lithium’s target market of corporate travel is worth roughly $4 billion and has about 500,000 diesel cars
The cost of running an electric car is one-fourth of the cost of running a diesel car, which leaves Lithium able to undercut its non-electric competitors
The success it has already seen is pushing it to expand—more cabs, more cities, more funding
But high cost, low EV sales, and the lack of charging infrastructure make it challenging for corporations to make the switch
