Tuesday, July 25, 2017

FUTURE TRANSPORT SPECIAL..... Mahindra eyes ride-hailing pie

Mahindra eyes ride-hailing pie


Anand Says Co Looking At Partnerships, Incubating Smaller Players

The $19-billion diversified Mahindra group is set to foray into the highly competitive ride-hailing and cab aggregation business -currently dominated by the likes of Uber and Ola -as chairman Anand Mahindra believes that the days of personal commuting may be limited, especially in congested cities and metros. Electric vehicles will be the preferred choice for ride aggregators, as demand for petrol and diesel cars starts “tapering off “.
Mahindra said segments such as “plain-vanilla sedan“ are a “threatened species“ as more and more individuals opt for shared mobility to save the hassles of new car purchase, insurance, maintenance, and parking. “Even my daughters have no intention of owning a car for commuting.This reality is now at home,“ Mahindra told TOIon the side lines of the Formula-E (electric) Racing here. “There will be a levelling off, or a sinking in the personal commuting segment. There will be a dramatic shift in the customer segment. Overall, will it go down? Hopefully yes, as we want less cars on the streets,“ he said.
Mahindra said much of the industry's growth will be fuelled by the car-hailing business.“It is like recognising a new reality. We cannot expect the auto industry to grow like this in the absence of ride-share.“
Asked if Mahindra is looking at anything on the lines of Ola and Uber or having partnerships with such companies, Mahindra said, “We will look at every possibility .“ He, however, added that unlike Uber or Ola, which burn tremendous amounts of cash to keep customers rolling in, Mahindra will look at niche solutions.“For example, why shouldn't Mahindra have a ride-sharing app that offers Thar SUVs in Goa? The niche applications will do better. We will not burn cash.“ The group will also look at incubating some of the companies that are already engaged in the business.
Last year, it had signed a deal with Ola to supply 40,000 cars. Others too are eyeing the ride-sharing business. Hero MotoCorp, the country's largest two-wheeler maker, has expressed its intent to get into the category, while Ford India bought a stake in car-sharing company Zoomcar.
Mahindra's entry into the business will coincide with the development of new electric ve hicles by the group that will cater to the shared-mobility segment. “Mahindra intends to not only make the product like lowcost, spacious, urban electric taxis, but we also plan to invest in the ride-sharing space... we will look at partnerships and other investments because we think that the industry is going to be one of solutions, and not just products.“
The group has already got a taste of the business in a limited fashion ­ when it invested in Scoot Networks, an urban mobility solutions provider in San Francisco that also uses the company's `GenZe' electric scooters. “The new philosophy of millennials and many others is that they want access to transportation, not ownership. They prefer ride-hailing, or car-pooling... This will come first in dense urban clusters,“ added Mahindra.
Pankaj Doval
New York (The writer is in the US at the invitation of Mahindra)
TOI 17JUL17


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