ETO Motors plans to set up second manufacturing unit in Hyderabad

Hyderabad-based ETO Motors, which manufactures electric three-wheelers under the brand Bulke Plus and passenger vehicles under the brand Trilux, has drawn up plans to set up a second manufacturing unit in the city.

The company already has one manufacturing unit with a capacity to make about 600 units per month. It had announced an investment of about Rs 250 crore when the Telangana’s Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy was announced last year. “The second unit is being finalised and it will be having more capacity than the existing one. The investment and other configurations will be announced shortly,” said Rajeev YSR, ETO Motors VP– Business Development.

The second investment comes within a year of announcing a big investment. “The demand for electric vehicles is on the rise and our investment plans are in line with the growing preference for them,” he said.

The company is also into setting up charging stations and deploying fleets for last-mile connectivity and logistics operations. “There is a lot of potential last mile connnectivity.  Once this is available, more people will be willing to use the public transport and thereby aid in reducing the net emissions. 

We also will look at tapping townships for commute within,” he said. It now counts Amazon, BigBasket, IKEA, Grofers, and other players as its clients.

“We have an order book for about 3,000



units to be delivered over the next few months,” said Rajeev.

It has recently launched Thunderbox, a new solution that eases the electric vehicle charging woes. It is suited for homes, small businesses, logistics hubs, parking spaces, malls, residential projects, and commercial venues. Thunderbox, which is priced at about Rs 10,000, is designed to work with all two and three-wheelers, he said.

ETO has a presence in Hyderabad, Delhi, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, and Nagpur and will soon launch its operations in Chennai, Kolkata, and other cities. It now operates five charging stations in Hyderabad. The current cost of running an electric vehicle is about Re 1 per km. Even though the charging stations now use grid power, the net emissions are significantly lower compared to vehicles that run on fossil fuels. “We have plans to launch solar energy-based charging stations this year,” he said.

“We are now working on a higher power four-wheeler to be used in the logistics sector. ETO is also working on a battery swap technology,”  he said about the product development and research happening in the company.

It employs about 400 people at the current factory in addition to the drivers who use the company-made vehicles. It has now launched ‘Own Your ETO Scheme’ to promote enterpreneurship. Under this, it allows anyone who runs the vehicle for 36 months with the company to own it free of cost.