Zoomcar sees self-driving car rentals picking up in India

The self-driving car rental concept in India is currently at a nascent stage in India but is expected to become popular as more people opt for the service.

Zoomcar, the first Indian company in the self-drive car rental service sector, sees a lot of potential in India. The company, which has operations in Bangalore, Pune and Delhi, opened its services in Chennai on April 27. It now plans to open its services in Mumbai and Hyderabad soon and is aiming to add another 10 cities to expand its India operations.

According to Greg Moran, co-founder and CEO, “Self-driving is slowly picking up in India and we want to expand our operations to more and more cities. As of now, we have 1,000 cars and want to scale this up to 3,000 cars in 2015. We are aiming to double our revenue in a year’s time and expect Mumbai and Delhi to become our biggest markets.”

The company, which was set up in 2013, allows users to rent cars by the hour, day, week or monthly. While it owns most of the cars in its fleet, it also has hired contractual vehicles. At present, the 1,000-strong fleet comprises of the Ford Figo, Ford Ecosport, Honda City, Honda Amaze, Mahindra e2O, Scorpio, XUV, Tata Safari, Maruti Ciaz, and BMW and Mercedes-Benz cars.

“We have high potential to capture market share in this segment as India has a small number of cars that are being used for self-driving. In China, the top two players operating in this segment have more than 110,000 cars,” said Moran. 

When asked about the competition in this segment in India, Moran said that Zoomcar has no direct competitor albeit though there are few small-scale operators offering similar services in India.

Rising driver costs and a shortage of drivers in India points to a decline of the chauffeur-dominated model over the next few years and in turn offers potential for self-driven cars. It’s this business opportunity that Zoomcar wants to capitalise on.