India’s first certified electric light commercial vehicle manufacturer and the maker of the country’s first FAME-certified 3-wheeler in the L5 category, Etrio Automobiles, has announced a long-term strategic partnership with Bengaluru-based EV financing and solutions company Turno to accelerate commercial EV deployments and enable their optimal utilization across India. Both the companies have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together, in the initial phase, for the financing and deployment of 1,000 e-3w cargo vehicles manufactured by Etrio in the next 12 months.
Notably, as a part of this collaboration, Etrio’s flagship 3W model “Touro Max” vehicles would be deployed across a plethora of first-mile and last-mile logistics and commercial transport use-cases – including but not limited to retail and e-commerce logistics, gas delivery, agri-logistics, and other innovative commercial EV use-cases.
The vehicles’ deployment shall commence from cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai wherein Etrio and Turno have a strong presence and eventually expand to various other parts of India as well. Furthermore, Etrio and Turno will work together to improve vehicle intelligence in a bid to deliver a premium and superlative customer experience.
Beyond scaling up the vehicle deployments, Etrio will work closely with Turno to develop innovative EV financing options for minimizing vehicle delivery timelines, maximizing asset utilization through Etrio’s smart remote service diagnostics tools, and improving the vehicles’ residual life.
The collaboration between Etrio and Turno will be instrumental in the long run towards serving their shared objectives and mission of fortifying the EV ecosystem and enhancing value creation via improving asset value and growing EV adoption in our country.
Speaking on the significance of the partnership, Kalyan C Korimerla, MD & Co-founder, Etrio says, “Today, we are advancing towards a future where smart EV adoption in India is bound to accelerate on account of better performance, effective vehicle and fleet management as well as superior operating economics. Etrio is excited to work closely with Turno to not only enable wide-spread deployment of our vehicles across an ever-increasing range of applications but also offer superior asset economics to our customers through Turno’s innovative financing solutions and strong technology platform.”
“The partnership with Turno is aligned to our growth agenda in three ways – firstly, it will enable us to scale our vehicle deployments across diverse Commercial EV use cases, pan India; secondly, it will help us provide affordable EV financing solutions to our customers, and thirdly, increase the overall value proposition to our customers through data analytics and vehicle intelligence solutions”, he added.
Hemanth Aluru, CEO & Co-Founder, Turno adds, “The partnership with Etrio is strategically aligned with our vision to create viable financial solutions for promoting commercial EV adoption. Etrio has already acquired extensive experience and insights into how electric vehicles perform across different terrains and multiple use cases. Today, Etrio is well-poised to extract immense value from the data they have gathered and can leverage it to evaluate how the vehicles will perform across a spectrum of diverse use cases and lifespans. While providing financing and end-of-life asset valuation support, we will together strive to not only ensure effective deployment of Etrio’s vehicles but also collaborate with Etrio for enhancing the long-term asset value for customers.”
Etrio’s cargo vehicles, which include e-3Ws and e-4Ws with payloads ranging from 500 to 700 kg., have till date accumulated approximately 8 million in-service kms, thereby enabling the company to constantly learn from important data points on the performance of various key parameters of its vehicles in real-world use-cases. The company is focused on enhancing EV performance and delivering superior customer experience by leveraging its on-road experience.
Turno is an electric vehicle financing company that helps commercial vehicle operators switch to EVs by providing affordable financing solutions for a wide selection of vehicles from its partnered OEMs, and battery value guarantees to ensure the highest return on value for EV owners.
About Etrio
Founded in 2017, Etrio is an electric cargo vehicle manufacturer with the vision to “Lead Cargo Fleet Electrification”. Etrio is transforming the environment, lives, and businesses and driving EV adoption at scale in the country. Today, the company’s product portfolio has a wide range of electric vehicles across payloads ranging from 500 kg to 700 kg across three and four-wheeler segments.
Etrio introduced India’s first certified electric light commercial vehicle and the country’s first FAME-certified 3-wheeler in the L5 category. The company’s EVs are currently operating at global companies such as Amazon, IKEA, Big Basket, Reliance JioMart, FlipKart/Walmart, and Nestle, to name a few. The company is committed to building AI-driven reliable and intelligent products for optimized supply chain planning, better operational economics, and enhanced customer delight.
About Turno
Turno’s mission is to transition gasoline miles to electric miles in India. The company enables commercial vehicle operators to transition from ICE vehicles to EVs. It is co-founded by Hemanth Aluru and Sudhindra Reddy Pidapa –experienced entrepreneurs in the mobility industry with a strong track record of value creation. Before starting Turno, they had led Zoomcar, India’s largest personal mobility platform.
In June 2022, Turno closed a $3.1m funding round. The round was led by Stellaris Venture Partners, with capital also coming from Avaana Capital. Support also came from several angel investors, including Bigbasket co-founder Vipul Parekh, Darwinbox co-founder Jayant Paleti, Mosaic Wellness co-founder Dhyanesh Shah, the Goenka Family Office of the Indian Express and many more.
