CHETAN MAINI - The Mobility Transformer

The co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility is on India's Digital Cover for April Entrepreneur

- S SHANTHI

Chetan Maini has been a firm believer in the potential of electric vehicles (EVs) long before everyone else envisioned it. He started working on India’s first electric car, Reva, even before Tesla came into being. And, today, when the entire world is going gaga over EVs, he sits unassumingly in his office in one of the canopied lanes of Bengaluru, working towards building a greener future. He shares with us his thoughts on the EV transition, his vision for India, the story behind India’s first electric car, Reva, SUN Mobility, MaaS and more.

ON BEING AHEAD OF TIME

“I think when I started, it was a very different time. It was driven by a lot around climate change and the energy side of it in the early 90s. A lot of it happened while trying to get experience from racing solar cars. And they got me involved personally, for I really felt that it was going to be the future,” he said. The awareness of energy security and climate change is today high among the masses, startups, corporates and others. However, Maini always knew that these two were going to become the biggest challenges of our generation. That triggered him to innovate. “We were early because things were not mature. But I think over the last few years, we have had everything come together. We have had technological advancements in new innovations, cost structures and government policies. Oil prices are higher today and the cost of renewable energies has come down. All of this coming together at the macro level is today making electrics highly viable. So yes, we were ahead, but I think there is a right time. And the time is now today,” he said.

ON EV TRANSITION