Sun Mobility partners cKers Finance to drive Mobility as a Service (MaaS) for last-mile delivery

cKers Finance, an NBFC focused on financing sustainability and clean energy in India has provided a debt financing facility to Bangalore-based energy services company for electric vehicles Sun Mobility.

As per the understanding, the capital provided to Sun Mobility will be used to accelerate deployment of EVs integrated with Sun Mobility’s swappable batteries as part of its MaaS (Mobility as a service) model.

Following the partnership, Sun Mobility has already started deploying Piaggio Ape e-Xtra electric three-wheelers with third-party logistics (3PL) service providers. Sun Mobility has introduced e-three-wheelers that offer a payload capacity of more than 500 kg and unlimited battery swaps. The MaaS model allows customers to onboard vehicles with no upfront capital cost or need to own the vehicle. With this solution, the customers pay a monthly rental where the vehicle is provided to them with unlimited battery swaps, extending the vehicle range and operating hours. Fleet operators can scale up their business in an asset-light manner while utilising Sun Mobility’s industry leading offering with lowest-cost and highest uptime via a 2-minute swap.

The demand for last mile delivery decarbonation is driven by ecommerce companies who are opting to replace their existing fossil fuel based last mile delivery fleets with EVs with a cumulative target of deploying over 50,000 EVs in the next 3 years.

Chetan Maini, co-founder and chairman, Sun Mobility said, “Sun Mobility is currently engaged with a number of OEMS, fleet operators, financers and end consumers to develop a robust EV ecosystem in India. Our technology solution addresses the key challenges such as high upfront cost, range anxiety, battery life along with providing maintenance and insurance bundled in our MaaS offering. Our swappable battery technology developed over years of R&D guarantees a stress-free ride to our driver partners, this technology coupled with tie-ups with reputed OEMs are designed to address the end user hindrances which in turn will enable a smoother and faster transition to EVs. We are targeting to deploy over a million EVs by 2025, towards achieving this goal.”

Deepak Gupta, business development head, cKers said “The last-mile delivery segment is poised to see a significant deployment of eSCVs fleets over the next 3 years given the strong operating cost advantage. cKers has been investing in EVs for over 2 years now and has already committed lines enabling deployment of over 2,500 e2Ws and 1,000 electric e3W-loaders by the end of current financial year, giving it a head start in financing clean mobility.”

cKers is a clean energy focused financier which is leveraging its understanding of the clean energy ecosystem and technology to develop credit risk underwriting frameworks for assessing viability and risk monitoring for the vehicles being deployed while offering a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and low carbon alternative to end customers.