The Average Host Earns Up To Rs 50,000 Per Month: Greg Moran, Zoomcar

BW Auto World spoke to Greg Moran, CEO & Co-founder, Zoomcar about the company’s growth post pandemic and covering the vision of including EVs in to the services along with the yearly trends observed by him. Here’s what he said:

How has your journey been after the pandemic?

We have seen tremendous growth in business volumes compared to last year as we got out of covid-19. We’ve grown by leaps and bounds during this period. When we were operating in direct leasing or vehicle finance model, our maximum strength was about 7,000 vehicles. Now as we’ve transitioned into a full marketplace, we’ve been able to grow it by three and half. We also achieved significant improvement in our ticket size, much like what you’ve seen with other digital or e-commerce platforms, where commonalities coming through covid-19 and then moving out of it, was the purchasing power and overall volume, and ticket size going up quite a bit. With travel restrictions now eased, the post-pandemic behavioural change has resulted in families taking more frequent long-weekend trips in bigger cars and with greater flexibility.

Has the number of people renting cars in major cities increased as space becomes more of an issue?

Zoomcar has witnessed steady growth since its launch, with more individuals hosting their cars on the platform to earn an additional passive income. Zoomcar offers over 1,000 unique SKUs across more than 40 cities including transit points like airports and railway stations with a comprehensive portfolio of cars across categories - Hatchbacks, Sedans, MUVs, SUVs, EVs, and Luxury cars. The average host shares their vehicle for 15 days in a month and earns up to Rs 50,000 per month. Zoomcar hosts are a mix of entrepreneurs, corporate employees, and small business owners with approximately 15 per cent of the hosts listing multiple cars on the Zoomcar sharing marketplace. Hosts inspire to create a secondary source of income from existing/new vehicles to create a rental business of their own. The age bracket for Zoomcar hosts varies from the mid-20s to mid-50s. Our shared mobility vision has proven an ideal fit for emerging markets, as low vehicle ownership creates huge untapped demand among a rising middle class that faces affordability and convenience constraints, driving low car ownership levels below 10 per cent. Meanwhile, young populations and rapidly growing cities make Zoomcar’s ecosystem stronger and help to strengthen continuous adoption, while high urban density creates a strong marketplace network. The business model of Zoomcar not only revolves around sustainability but also caters to the market need for convenient self-drive mobility

What kinds of trends have you been observing in 2022, and what are you aiming for and expecting in 2023?

The future of mobility in India is going to be shared and sustainable, and self-drive is one of the pillars on which this is being built. India currently possesses one of the lowest private car utilisation rates in the world.  People are now looking for shorter-term mobility access as opposed to long-term investment. Technological innovations have also become an integral part of the automotive industry. Besides hardware and software, business models are evolving at a rapid pace with a huge shift in preference towards usage, particularly shared mobility, over vehicle ownership. Today’s customers are much more interested in mobility-on-demand, cost-effectiveness, and convenience.  The automotive industry is moving towards the concept of ‘connected vehicles’ where vehicles become connected to each other, to different technologies, and to people.  More and more will come with built-in applications based on automotive telematics, telecommunication, and informatics.

Have you included EVs in your services? Or are you collaborating with any EV auto manufacturers to bring EVs into operations?

At  Zoomcar, we strive to be at the forefront of creating innovative solutions that can help shape the mobility industry. We currently have 500 EVs on our platform and  have also recently partnered with Statiq to accelerate EV-based travel in India, through  this partnership EV owners would now be able to list their cars as hosts on Zoomcar and help increase the popularity of EVs among non-EV owners helping to foster a culture of clean mobility among the public. 

Do you believe that incorporating EVs would help the company provide the services at cheaper prices and eventually help it gain a larger market share?

The very business model of Zoomcar is centered on reducing the burden of increasing vehicles on the infrastructure and the environment. In my opinion, a car shared takes 20 other cars off the road. Electric Vehicles (EVs) have become sought after for a variety of reasons, including their environment-friendly nature and long-term cost savings offered to users. In fact, India’s EV market, despite being at a nascent stage overall, has been witnessing steady growth in recent years, with an increasing number of consumers taking the EV route and the government introducing policies to facilitate an EV-conducive environment.

What kind of future do you see for EVs in India, and also, what is the future going to be for your company?

EVs have become sought after for a variety of reasons, including their environment-friendly nature and long-term cost savings offered to users. However, one cannot disagree with the fact EVs come with their fair share of pros and cons. One of the biggest pros is the fact that these vehicles do not consume fuel as their traditional counterparts. Hence, an organisation can tick a significant amount of expense from the income statement. As compared to combustion fuel-based vehicles, annual maintenance charges are also significantly low. Oil changes do not exist and brake maintenance is also negligible as against traditional vehicles. Needless to mention, the usage of EVs shall have a positive impact on the environment. Even though automobile companies are making efforts to bring down total production costs so that the benefits can be transferred to the end-consumers, the total capital expenditure needed to procure an EV is still too high, especially with the traditional options available. The total time taken to charge the battery of an EV depends on its capacity and miles offered. High-end vehicles will undoubtedly take a longer time for getting fully charged. Even though governments are trying to improve the availability of charging stations and further increase electricity generation, the presence of merely 1800 charging stations in a geographically large country such as India is not enough to present a strong case for EVs as part of the rental fleet. Hence, there is a need for a stellar public-private partnership to knock down this significant issue in the universal acceptance of EVs in India.