- BluSmart is a cab-hailing service that uses EV cars that operate on electricity instead of petrol or diesel.
- The company is working to promote sustainability by reducing carbon emissions caused by regular cabs.
- The firm promises customers zero cancellations, no surge fee, and on-time rides while paying its drivers well.
We have all faced the hassles of traveling with an Indian cab service. Whether it be the traditional taxi service or the modern cab-hailing services such as Ola or Uber, all come with their own set of pros and cons.
Traditional taxi fleets are getting rapidly endangered due to their exorbitant, unmitigated charges and an overall incompatibility to establish a client-driver relationship. Meanwhile, cab hailing services are also not worth their price tag.
Commuters complain of a lack of rides, long waiting times, rides with surge pricing, drivers denying digital modes of payment, and so on. But now, a new service on the cab market promises to change all that and more, thus welcoming BluSmart.
What is BluSmart?
BluSmart Mobility is an Indian ride-sharing company, headquartered in Gurugram, India. It was founded by Anmol Singh Jaggi, Punit K Goyal, and Puneet Singh Jaggi in 2019.
Now while most may think this company might be like any other cab-hailing service provider trying to break into an already crowded market, BluSmart is unique, and rightly so.
The USP
The best selling point of BluSmart is that it does not employ regular ICE(internal combustion engine) cars in its service. Meaning cars run on conventional fuels such as petrol or diesel.
This company leases and owns Electronic Vehicles(EVs) from various top Indian manufacturers such as Tata and Mahindra. So this essentially means that BluSmart is cutting down environmental pollution at the core by operating vehicles that don’t emit pollutants but rather operate via electricity.
Punit Goyal, the co-founder of BluSmart, exclaimed that most of the cars operating under cab services in India are ICE vehicles. It is no secret that the carbon emissions and pollution levels caused by such vehicles are enormous and they only keep increasing.
The only way to reduce and stop that is to have an EV fleet and that’s where BluSmart comes in. Punit says BluSmart has saved over 8,000 metric tonnes of CO2 with its EV fleet.
As of 2022, the company’s fleet of vehicles includes the Mahindra e-Verito, Tata e-Tigor, Tata Xpres-T EV, Hyundai Kona Electric, and MG ZS Electric.
After completing 2 million trips with over 2,200 cabs in Delhi-NCR, BluSmart recently launched its operations in Bengaluru. The company started with 70 EVs in Delhi-NCR in 2019. It currently has over 3,000 cabs across Bengaluru and Delhi.
The benefit to the drivers
Apart from promising customers a cleaner environment-friendly service, zero cancellations, no surge fee, and on-time rides, the startup promises it will cater to the needs of its drivers too.
Punit explained that drivers working with names such as Ola and Uber are limited to being micro-entrepreneurs and they own a depreciating asset. They incur fuel costs, EMI, rent, or payments as commission. The driver ends up earning about Rs 450 in a day.
Moreover while working with such cab-hailing services the drivers incur a brokerage fee as well. Ola and Uber are matching platforms. They match a customer with a driver and the driver with a customer. If the matching happens, then they charge a commission of 25% on the completion of the ride, as a brokerage commission.
However, BluSmart promises that it will treat its drivers better. With this company, they will not incur any costs. Moreover, they get a minimum guarantee pay from BluSmart and a variable pay depending on their conduct with the customers.
According to Punit, a driver on the BluSmart platform can essentially make anywhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs 24,000 on a monthly basis.
Challenges along the way
A major challenge overlooking the horizon for BluSmart is the small fleet size of EV cars. The availability and frequency of BluSmart rides aren’t high as of now. In India, mYn and drife are BluSmart’s competitors.
Another hurdle lies in allocating dedicated charging hubs. Since these vehicles operate on electricity the company needs to procure space to charge its fleet of cars and allow drivers to easily pick them up for service.
Currently, the startup has deployed a few cabs in Bengaluru. It is looking to have 25,000 to 30,000 cabs in the city by the end of next year.
To cater to this market demand, BluSmart has an ambitious goal of having over 1,00,000 vehicles by 2025 in the country.
