Zoomcar bullish on cycle sharing, confirms that Pedl operations will resume soon

Pedl is focusing on cycle quality to ensure we're in the bike sharing space race for the long run, says Zoomcar CEO Greg Moran.

Just yesterday several of Zoomcar's customers got an email stating that the company would be putting an interim stop to its Pedl services pan-India by December 21. Now, Greg Moran, Co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar, has confirmed to YourStory, that it is indeed just an interim stop and that Pedl operations will be resumed later next year. 

"The problem wasn't the bookings or getting consumers to use the service; the problem was the hardware, availability of the vehicles, and their quality," Greg said. He said in the past 11 to 12 months, Pedl had over 3 million transactions, much more than any other platform. Zoomcar continuously introduced new features to improve the overall Pedl experience, be it a more flexible end-trip mechanism or a pioneering, industry-leading subscription model.

"We are currently working with manufacturing partners to make the cycles studier and of better quality. We are looking at a 20x to 30x scale, and for that kind of scale it is important that we create and build the right form factors and hardware, to ensure that we continue in the race for the long run."

Greg said Zoomcar was committed to different forms of mobility, and cycle or bike sharing was an important aspect. "With growing number of customers, we want to ensure that the brand gives them the best experience possible. For that, cycles need to be available and of a quality that works for Indian roads. We are extremely bullish about the market and the space. The consumer behaviour and number of transactions we have seen are testament to the existence of a market. We will soon be redeploying cycles in the market," he said.

Earlier this year, Zoomcar raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Mahindra & Mahindra. Operational for five years, Zoomcar has a fleet of nearly 3,000 cars spread across 26 cities. Apart from Zoomcar, even Ola entered the bike sharing space in 2017 with Pedal. There are also other players like Yulu, founded by Amit Gupta, Co-founder of mobile advertising platform Inmobi; Letscycle, and 2018 Tech30 startup Mobycy. Recently Bounce (earlier known as Metro Bikes) took over the assets of Chinese bike sharing unicorn Ofo in India.