In this exclusive interview, Hiroshi Nishijima, CEO of Zoomcar, shared insights with the Editorial Lead of BW Auto World, Utkarsh Agarwal about how the company is leading the way in India's fast-evolving mobility space, differentiating itself with a customer-first approach, innovative AI integrations, and a focus on sustainable growth. Nishijima discusses Zoomcar’s unique offerings, from unlimited kilometers and zero security deposits to micro-business opportunities for Hosts, as well as the company’s ambitious vision for an EV-integrated fleet and a robust AI-driven platform. As Zoomcar navigates infrastructure and consumer adoption challenges, the company is set on maintaining its market leadership and expanding its impact in India’s shared mobility ecosystem. Read the excerpts below: -
With the rapidly evolving mobility landscape, how does Zoomcar differentiate itself from competitors in the car-rental and self-drive space?
Zoomcar differentiates itself in the mobility landscape by offering the largest range of self-drive cars in India, with over 25,000 options across 99+ cities. Unique features like unlimited kilometers, zero security deposits, and affordable trip protection make it stand out from both online and offline rental competitors.
At Zoomcar, our hosts are our business partners where we provide them with micro business opportunities and massive access to over 10M+ guests from all over India and the world. We have AI-based pricing tools that help hosts with the best pricing based on their car model, place, and date of booking helping them increase their earnings potential compared to others in the market. Furthermore, our customer-obsessed team is working on building futuristic GenAI solutions for both guests and hosts that will change the way India travels.
In 2023, the market was valued at around $1-1.5 billion, with projections that the car rental industry is vast and competitive. Can you provide insights into the current size of the market and how much of it is accounted for by the self-drive segment?
Suggesting it could grow to $3-4 billion by 2027. Within this broader market, the self-drive segment contributes to roughly 200 million, a substantial and growing portion, especially as consumers increasingly seek convenient, flexible, and cost-effective mobility solutions, particularly in metro & tourist cities as more users shift away from traditional car ownership and embrace shared mobility.
What opportunities do you see for new players in the car rental market, and how can Zoomcar leverage its position to capture a larger share of this market?
The car rental industry in India is already saturated with the fight for market share by leading companies in the chauffeur-driven segment. The full potential of the shared mobility space is still untapped within the travel and car rental ecosystem and can evolve further just like we’ve seen in e-commerce, food commerce, home rentals, and more. This is exactly what Zoomcar has always focused on and also evolved to be India’s largest car-sharing marketplace.
Recently, we launched Zoomcar Assured centers as a solution & opportunity for more hosts to join our platform. These centers help more business enthusiasts join the car-sharing business, where experts manage end-to-end car listing operations for hosts who find it challenging to do so themselves, ensuring a seamless experience for both hosts and guests. We plan to add over 100 centers and 1,000+ cars, operated by verified third-party providers.
More so while the car rental industry has solved for the ease in mobility in India, there is a growing shift towards GenAI-based products now that solve for consumers end to end experience. At Zoomcar, we are heavily focused on GenAI-based products that solve end-to-end experiences for guests in trip planning reduce decision-making and optimise earnings for hosts. We recently launched a beta product for our hosts and are in the process of launching solutions for guests too. By focusing on scalable platform economics, Zoomcar offers affordable, asset-sharing mobility options for guests while providing income-generation opportunities for hosts.
The Indian government has been pushing for greater EV adoption through various initiatives. How does Zoomcar plan to align with these regulatory developments, and what impact do you expect them to have on your business?
We’ve been extremely excited about all of the efforts taken by the Indian government in the last few years to increase the adoption of EVs. We had the first movers' advantage in getting EV cars onboarded onto our platform for car sharing as compared to others. We also partnered with newer EV car-sharing platforms, so our guests had access to a wider choice of vehicles all over India. While we have seen a great response to in-city travel through guests doing smaller duration bookings, it's the longer duration travel has resulted in lower EV bookings as expected due to the limited charging infrastructure outside metro areas and range anxiety associated with long road trips. While EVs work well for short-distance city travel, inter-city journeys remain challenging due to underdeveloped charging networks in smaller cities and remote locations. As infrastructure expands and awareness grows, Zoomcar aims to scale its EV offerings for broader use cases in the future.
What challenges do you foresee in integrating electric vehicles into Zoomcar's platform, particularly in terms of infrastructure and consumer adoption in India?
Integrating electric vehicles (EVs) into Zoomcar's platform in India presents several challenges, particularly concerning infrastructure and consumer adoption. High initial setup costs for charging stations, especially fast chargers, can act as a barrier to widespread investment. Additionally, the current electrical grid needs significant upgrades to manage the increased demand for EV charging. In densely populated urban areas, finding suitable land for charging stations remains difficult. Consumer concerns like range anxiety, where drivers worry about running out of battery before reaching their destination, also persist, despite newer EV models offering better ranges. While charging infrastructure has improved, it is still developing in India, especially in rural areas and smaller cities. Overcoming these challenges will require collaborative efforts to expand the charging network, enhance grid capacity, and introduce efficient fast-charging solutions. Addressing these issues will be critical for mass EV adoption in India.
Looking ahead, how do you envision Zoomcar's fleet evolving over the next decade? What proportion of your fleet do you expect to be electric, and how will this transformation impact your overall business model?
Over the next decade, we expect Zoomcar’s fleet to gradually evolve, with a growing emphasis on electric vehicles (EVs), especially as charging infrastructure improves across India. Currently, we believe that EVs are not fully ready for the tourism use case, particularly for long-distance road trips where charging infrastructure in remote areas remains underdeveloped. However, once these infrastructure challenges are resolved, the economic efficiency of EVs—particularly their lower running costs—makes them a natural choice for our customers, who prioritise fuel efficiency. Given these advantages, we believe even more than 50 per cent of our fleet could be EV as fuel efficiency is one of the most important criteria for guests.
How is Zoomcar integrating AI and advanced analytics into its operations? Can you share specific examples of how these technologies have improved customer experience or operational efficiency?
Zoomcar is at the forefront of integrating AI and GenAI into our products and operations to enhance both customer experience and operational efficiency. Almost half of our engineering team is dedicated to developing and refining GenAI and traditional AI models. These technologies optimise earnings for the hosts and hence generate higher revenue by dynamically pricing their cars, determining appropriate damage coverage options, and providing ratings-based rewards for hosts and guests. In addition, our platform utilises sophisticated recommendation models to match guests with vehicles based on their preferences and past behavior, improving the search and discovery process.
We also leverage government-approved strict verification tools for guests and hosts to reduce fraud and hence enhancing security and reliability of the overall platform. This helps build a trust-based community among users.
Moreover, our IoT-enabled keyless entry application allows guests to access vehicles via their smartphones, promoting a seamless, contactless experience. This technology is deployed across the majority of host vehicles.
Looking ahead, what is your vision for Zoomcar? What milestones are you aiming to achieve?
With customer obsession at the core of our vision, we are focused on enhancing platform functionality and expanding our offerings to better meet the mobility needs of hosts and guests. We aim to achieve sustainable growth by continuously improving our core technology and developing new features that enhance user experience. We are looking to build India’s strongest business-minded community that participates more actively in car sharing turning cars that are usually referred to as a liability into an asset. As a publicly listed company, we are immensely focused on achieving profitability in operations in India and having cleaner balance sheets with debt restructuring. These efforts will not only enhance our platform’s functionality but also position Zoomcar as a leading choice for versatile and convenient car-sharing solutions.
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