With its new high-speed electric scooter segment, Crayon Motors is optimistic about growth

India’s readiness to adopt electric vehicles has been a topic of debate in recent years. EVs currently account for only around 2% of total vehicle sales. However, considering the government’s efforts being made to create an enabling EV ecosystem, the country is hoping to be a frontrunner in EV adoption. 

Co-founders Rakesh Jain, Rahul Jain, and Mayank Jain of Delhi-based Crayon Motors, an e-scooter manufacturing company, jumped in on the EV opportunity back in 2014. Their prior experience in the EV segment with UP Telelinks Limited, their family-owned business helped them get an early start. 

U.P. Telelinks Limited has been involved in manufacturing electric cables since 1985. In 2014, “when EVs had started to become mainstream”, they decided to diversify and manufacture electric rickshaws. Since then, they have been making electric rickshaws under the brand name Singham. 

“Because two-wheelers are a completely different market segment with very different consumer needs, we decided to bring it into a separate company,” says Rahul Jain, Director, Crayon Motors. 

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Business journey

After spending six to eight months researching, testing, and finding the right products from quality suppliers, the co-founders established a manufacturing facility for Crayon in Ghaziabad in 2019.

“We also spent a lot of time learning about the everyday needs of a typical two-wheeler customer,” says Rahul.

The fact that they already had a dealer and distributor network in place helped them launch the business sooner. “We spent a lot of time teaching our channel partners on how to maintain the vehicle, the batteries, and other dos and don'ts since it was a new technology,” he adds.

The co-founders also educated the channel partners on how to train the customers. According to Rahul, electric two-wheelers are not easily repaired in the market. “You cannot go to any mechanic like you can for other vehicles.”

The company has built a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with the capacity to produce 20,000 electric scooters per year. In 2020, Crayon launched its products in the market, a series of scooters in different designs - Zumba, Snow, Snow +, Envy, and Zeez. 

These scooters have a maximum speed of 25 km/h, and they start at Rs 45,000.

Crayon sold about 6,000 scooters during the fiscal year 2021–2022. It has sold about 13,000 scooters so far in this fiscal and aims to reach a target of 15,000 by the fiscal year-end.

The company is now expanding its portfolio to include high-speed electric scooters with the new C1 high-speed scooter being introduced in April this year. The new scooter will be IoT (Internet of Things) based. The users will be able to integrate their cell phones with the vehicles and it will have features such as Bluetooth and GPS mapping. 

The new vehicles will have a speed between 45 km/h and 60 km/h.

Differentiating factors

Sales of electric two-wheelers (E2W) in India are anticipated to reach 22 million by 2030, according to the Redseer Strategic Consultants' most recent analysis of the E2W market. The sale of registered EV two-wheelers in 2022 was 6,15,365 vehicles.

According to research by the India Rating & Research (Ind-Ra), the electric two-wheeler industry is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of around 75 to 80% between FY22 and FY25. 

Ola Electric, Okinawa Autotech, Hero Electric, Ampere Vehicles, Ather Energy, TVS Motor Co, and Bajaj Auto are some of the companies that dominate the Indian market. 

“We are currently focussed on bringing a consolidating product portfolio to our existing market. We want to work on our own products and build our market,” says Rahul. In the current fiscal year, Crayon has sold around 13,000 scooters so far. “Until now we were in the development phase. With the new launch of high-speed electric scooters, we are expecting good growth,” he adds. 

Crayon’s new scooters, in addition to adhering to the new battery standards, will also be IoT based. This will help in monitoring the problems remotely, predicting them, and taking preventive measures. 

“We are going to be setting up a team at the back end here to monitor what problems customers are facing and the R&D will continue to improve the products based on the data that we get,” says Rahul.

The company also places a lot of emphasis on its after-sales support. It frequently hosts service and sales camps wherein they welcome its customers to the dealer location, where the team and service engineers perform a health check on the vehicles and instruct the dealer technicians on how to take care of the vehicles so that the end-customer encounters no problems.

“We want the whole ecosystem to succeed,” says Rahul. Crayon scooters are currently available in 125 outlets across North India. Currently, its key markets are Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar, and some parts of Maharashtra. 

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Make In India initiatives

The company has collaborated with around 125 SMEs for the production of its EV parts and components. According to Rahul, the local supply chain is evolving with a lot of SMEs coming up in the manufacturing of vehicles as well.

“We see a lot of collaboration happening. Many large automobile components manufacturers which were not really interested in supplying to the EV industry are now launching parts for electric vehicles,” he says. 

The sales of EVs have increased over the past few years as a result of new policies like the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) scheme, which provides a direct incentive to the customer.

Manufacturers are working on the safety compliance aspects of batteries and vehicles as a result of regulatory standards being introduced by the government. 

Crayon is focusing on bringing the right technology to the customer without compromising on safety and quality. The company postponed the launch of its C1 scooters since they wanted to offer it with a battery that would adhere to the new battery standards.

Challenges along the way

“This being a new space, changes happen continuously in the market. There are many challenges down the line, but we take them as stepping stones,” says Rahul.

The FAME 1 scheme was supposed to provide subsidies for lead-acid vehicles as well, a clause that was later modified. Crayon's entire project was designed with that in mind, but by the time of its introduction, the policy had changed, excluding those vehicles from receiving subsidies.

With FAME 2 incentives being revised, the price between the low-speed and the high-speed segment was narrowed. “Since we were in the low-speed segment, it was another challenge that we had to overcome,” Rahul recalls.

Since markets were closed during the pandemic and its channel partners had stocks lying with them, the company faced additional difficulties during this period. After that, the business experienced strong growth, and with the aid of its channel partners, it was able to cater to the demand.

“We are working really hard at crayon motors to overcome all the challenges and we see a very long-term perspective here in terms of the industry stability. And with government support, we see this as a long-term field that we want to be in,” he adds. 

The path ahead

The business is currently experiencing demand from southern Indian states including Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. It has plans of expanding in these regions. With delivery executives switching to electric vehicles, there is significant demand in the B2B segment as well.

With the launch of high-speed electric vehicles, the company’s revenue target for the next fiscal year is Rs 100 crore. The company also plans to do backward integration and manufacture batteries and drivetrains in its manufacturing facilities.

“We want to stay ahead of the curve in bringing new technologies for the customers,” Rahul says. 

(The copy was updated to correct a factual error)