Range anxiety, the fear of running out of charge that electric vehicle (EV) owners harbour, is set to become a non-issue, if this just-launched new app goes the whole hog. The Gentari Go app comes from the clean energy arm of Malaysian energy giant Petronas and is already live in India, as also countries in South East Asia like Thailand and Malaysia.
Designed as an integrated all-in-one customer experience platform that helps the environmentally conscious (or the eco-curious) an all-in-one customer experience platform to access clean energy offerings. Right now in India, the app provides users access to over 1,500 EV charging points across the country as well as provisions for checking out home solar solutions. On the anvil: in-app booking for test driving electric vehicles from leading brands across India.
“Within the business, we are trying to unify all options (and cater to) the lifestyle changes that an EV user would want,” Gentari Green Mobility India CEO Nikhil Thomas told THE WEEK, “Those are the things that we’re trying to add on to the app rather than just becoming a discovery platform for charge points.”
The vision is big, to provide anything from the complete electric vehicle discovery-testing-to-buying process to become the go-to for locating charging points anywhere in the country. But for now, the company evidently wants to go slow and steady as electric mobility is still an evolving sector in the country.
Gentari already has a thriving e-VaaS (electric vehicle as a service) business whereby it provides vehicles, three-wheelers mostly, for last mile delivery operators of e-commerce platforms like Swiggy and Amazon, and the eventual idea is to integrate ‘anything clean energy’ into the app, making it an all-in-one.
“We’re targeting both influencing lifestyle changes (towards sustainability) as well as consistent business and consistent returns,” Nikhil explained, “But (first step) is making consumers interested, getting them hooked on to the platform. The EV industry is evolving (and) the app is also evolving (as) we need to kind of keep pace with the evolution of the EV industry.”
Gentari hopes the app will offer a multiplier effect to its physical-world business in India which include VaaS as well as charging points as a service. In fact, while it has tied up with charging infra companies like Numocity, Static and ChargeZone, more than one-fifth of the 1,500 chargers presently available on the app are owned by Gentari itself.
But as clean mobility achieves traction in the country, Gentari Go hopes to be the Industry touchstone, adding more partners and more services. That would include perhaps even becoming the ‘Uber’ of clean energy, considering its core VaaS business already involves leasing out electric vehicles, though presently only to other businesses.
“Ride hailing comes with the additional complexity of how do you manage drivers and all that, right? So, we don't have that capability right now to do it. But maybe in the future, if it makes sense, if that's the only way for, you know, electrifying India, then we'll have to think,” Nikhil said.