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EKA Mobility, part of Pinnacle Industries, is ramping up its commercial electric vehicle (EV) play with plans to introduce a new product every six months, founder and chairman Sudhir Mehta said.

The company is working on a wide range of models, including small commercial vehicles (SCVs) such as 3seater and 6seater passenger EVs, 3W cargo carriers, 2.5tonne cargo vehicles, garage tippers, and 3.5tonne cargo trucks for lastmile delivery. In the heavier segment, it is readying 7tonne and 55tonne trucks, currently under trial, for commercial launch in the coming months.

Expanding EV portfolio and capacity

“In the next two years, we will have a full range of commercial EVs in our portfolio. The SCV range will be launched in this festive season,” Mehta said, adding that electric trucks will deliver the biggest cost advantage due to lower operating expenses compared with diesel vehicles. 

Government push and adoption challenge

Acknowledging that charging remains a bottleneck in scaling the commercial vehicle business, Mehta said the government’s push, along with the ₹2,000crore allocation under the PM EDrive scheme for charging infrastructure, could ease the challenge. Since heavy trucks typically ply on limited main routes, deploying chargers along these corridors could significantly drive growth, he said. 

In the initial phase, the company plans to build an annual capacity of about 25,000 vehicles across all commercial vehicle segments. EKA Mobility also plans to launch an 18metre articulated coach with a 125passenger capacity within a year, expanding beyond its existing 7metre, 9metre, and 12metre ebuses.

EKA itself is also gearing up to manufacture more buses and will double capacity at its KoregaonBhima plant in Pune to 5,000 units annually by FY27. It will also add capacity for another 5,000 buses at its new Pithampur facility in Madhya Pradesh.

Mehta believes manufacturers will together need to scale up production capacity of buses to at least 10,000 units annually to meet rising demand, driven by the government’s aggressive electrification push. The ongoing 10,000bus procurement under the PM EDrive scheme is expected to accelerate adoption. 

India’s ebus penetration remains low. In FY25, only 3,392 of the 1,09,609 buses sold were electric or just 3.1%. The government has set a target of making 40% of new bus sales electric by 2030. With an estimated 2.3 million buses in the country, of which only 6% are operated by state transport undertakings (currently converting to electric with subsidies), most of the fleet remains in private hands, dominated by small operators. Despite buses making up less than 1% of the total vehicle fleet, they account for nearly 15% of India’s CO₂ emissions, making them central to the decarbonisation drive.