Croc EV enters light cargo space to solve 2-wheeler loading woes

Mumbai: With two wheels in front and one behind, Croc does look unusual compared to some of its other conventional electric three-wheeler siblings.

Yet, insist its founders, Aditya Puppala and Gayatri Jadhav, this small yet efficient offering has been developed with a lot of thought backed by robust engineering principles. They are now raring to go after getting the homologation approval certificate from the Pune-based Automotive Research Association of India.

Croc EV will come in two versions of which one will be fitted with a 2 kWh battery pack and the other with a 4 kWh pack. The prices will range from INR 1.75 to 2 lakh and its manufacturer, Speedloop Auto, has targeted sales of 250 units between January and March 2025 going up rapidly to 10,000 units for next fiscal. According to Puppala, there are a couple of fleet aggregators in Bengaluru and Delhi who are keen on using the vehicles. Croc EV has a payload of 100 kg (or 350 litres in volume capacity) and has been specifically earmarked for those customers who carry loads on their two-wheelers.

Stiger EV to follow

Next in line is the Stiger EV with a larger capacity but that is still sometime away with all attention now focused on Croc. “India has three-wheelers with payload capacities of 500 kg but there are other commercial applications happening with lighter loads. The two-wheeler is the primary cargo vehicle for people and we saw an opportunity in the sub 300 kg space,” Puppala told ETAuto in a recent interview.

Both he and Jadhav are also delighted that their former boss at Ashok Leyland, Vinod Dasari, is now an investor in the company. From their point of view, there could be nobody better to help them in this phase.

Dasari, who quit Ashok Leyland six years ago, now spends his professional time as a mentor for startups like Speedloop Auto headed by Puppala and Jadhav. A staunch believer of Pablo Picasso’s philosophy — ‘The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away’ — he was quick to realise that his inherent strengths lay in building businesses.

After calling it a day at Ashok Leyland, Dasari spent time as CEO of Royal Enfield, but then decided to leave and help his wife in building a hospital in Chennai. Today, he is completely involved with helping talented entrepreneurs realise their dreams among other interests.

Intracity deliveries

In the case of Puppala and Jadhav, they told him that the idea of the project was to focus on an intracity deliveries. What struck him was their passion and keenness on making this a reality. “From my point of view, a startup needs to know four things: a) what is the problem you are solving? b) is your solution unique? c) is your solution scalable? and d) do you have a proper team?” Dasari told ETAuto.

In this case, all the boxes were ticked and he, along with a handful of other investors, decided to support the young engineering duo. When the idea for the project began, both Puppala and Jadhav decided to focus on a small vehicle which could carry 300 litres and began surveying cases in Pune, their place of work.

“We found that people complained about stocking loads in two-wheelers,” recalls Jadhav and this is when they began working on the three-wheeler based on the reverse trike model of keeping two wheels in front and one at the rear.


Tadpole layout

They also pored through research papers by European engineers which indicated that reverse trike, also referred to as a tadpole layout, was the best option for small dimensions and assuring greater stability. “When there are two wheels in front and the brake is pressed, the weight shifts to the front and the load is distributed equally. The vehicle also works well in cornering, gradient variability and hard terrain where the single wheel cannot balance the load,” explains Puppala.

The founders then invited some retired professionals for guidance and the response was mixed. Some were not too sure about the design and the next step was to speak directly with end users. A prototype of Croc was shown to potential customers like Flipkart and BigBasket where its application was validated even though there were complaints about its manoeuverability and hard steering.

All the suggestions were incorporated and it is now time for the real test that kicks off in the New Year. The fact that the vehicle went through 10,000 km of testing has also been a huge confidence booster.

“We also carried out trials with Chitale, the dairy maker, in milk deliveries for four days. We comfortably managed 3-4 times what a two-wheeler can do in a single go without any damage to the sachets,” says a visibly pleased Jadhav.

Local sourcing

The motor battery pack was sourced from proven suppliers and the major innovation, says Puppala, was the chassis and payload box. “We decided not to design our own motor or battery pack and approached suppliers like Amara Raja for the pack,” he adds.

Jadhav and Puppala were part of the graduate engineering trainee programme at Ashok Leyland in Chennai when they first started their careers nearly a decade ago. As Dasari says, this was a rigorous training schedule where young engineers were just not taught automotive technology but also managerial skills, CSR in local villages etc. The overall idea was to build leaders for the future.

Dasari had already quit Ashok Leyland and Royal Enfield when Puppala and Jadhav sought his advice on building their new company and adopting the right strategy. They went through their share of challenges in raising money and meeting smooth talking investors who could have taken them down the garden path. This was when Dasari and some of his friends decided to step into the picture and lend support to a project they had tremendous faith in.

There was then a down cycle when startups were not getting money 2023 and another round of fund raising was done and the focus was narrowed down to just one vehicle, the Croc. Work was quick and it was sent for approval to the ARAI in April this year.

Awaiting approval

The unusual concept had to be explained in great detail and it took many months to get the final nod. “Big companies have resources but small companies don't which is a pity in this era of encouraging startups. They need to have separate lines for startups,” says Dasari.

As a hardcore engineer who gets visibly annoyed with any reference to jugaad (the Indian term for flexibility in problem solving), he reiterates that Croc is a unique design for specific applications. “This is a classic example of Indian engineering,” he adds while pointing out that an engineer’s job is not to solve a problem but to do so at the lowest cost possible. “This is definitely not jugaad!” reaffirms Dasari.

The ARAI approval marks the first step where “your head is above water” but the real task is to create a company that generates cash. Both Jadhav and Puppala now need to hire people, sell the product, fix the working capital, capex and create more products.

Working backwards

“This is where the future is. I have told them to work backwards now. You have the customer orders which is good. But do you have the supply chain ready, do you have the factory ready, management ready and the cash available to buy materials? Unless you write down these details, there is no point aiming for the sky,” cautions Dasari.

Puppala recalls how the initial development was heavily dependent on grants and government support. Getting access to finance was a challenge for an all-new product category but the duo hung in there to fight it out.

Thus far, the company has raised INR 10 crore, of which INR 1 crore is from grants and INR 2 crore from banks with the balance from other sources. “We will raise funds and plan to remain a lean and mean team with new hires planned in operations and marketing. Right now, we are able to manage our cash flows and will focus on homologation of future models,” says Jadhav.

She is also reasonably confident that new variants can be made every four months thanks to the knowhow built over the last few years. “We have 15 patents of which six are design and the rest are technology. There will be more patents coming in the future. Development costs will come down eventually,” says Jadhav.

Safety net

According to Dasari, risk mapping and creation of a safety net is critical by the end of the day. Engineers also need to double up as business whiz kids since the product should finally generate cash. “In business you will get what you negotiate. This is your product, start selling, get happy customers and others will line up. Having reached this stage, my investor friends and I now will go all out to help them,” he adds.

Dasari believes that the Centre has done well with its focus on startups but the rest of the ecosystem will have to fall into place too. Perhaps one solution would be to put startups into the MSME category so that suppliers, banks, labour commissioners etc treat them differently with a longer rope. “We need to help them stand and the Centre needs to look at the entire ecosystem,” he says.