Nirmal Reddy on How ETO Motors Is Shaping India’s Intercity and Urban EV Landscape

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Nirmal Reddy, President of ETO Motors, who reflects on a landmark year defined by scale, strategic partnerships, and deep technological integration across India’s electric mobility ecosystem. Reddy shares how ETO Motors expanded its electric fleet across passenger mobility, logistics, airport operations, and intercity transport, while strengthening its charging infrastructure and software-led fleet intelligence through ROQIT. He discusses the growing role of telematics, AI, and battery intelligence in improving uptime and total cost of ownership, the impact of collaborations with global and domestic mobility players, and ETO Motors’ long-term vision to build a unified, multi-modal EV platform. The conversation also offers insights into the opportunities shaping India’s EV market in 2026 and practical advice for founders building in a reliability-first mobility landscape.

StartupTalky: How would you summarise ETO Motors journey in 2025? What key milestones, product updates, or deployments made this year special?

Nirmal Reddy: 2025 was a defining year for ETO Motors, marked by scale, innovation, and a deeper integration into India’s rapidly evolving electric mobility landscape. As a leading electric fleet operator, ETO Motors strengthened its presence across passenger mobility, last-mile logistics, intercity transport, and the smart charging ecosystem.

Key milestones included:

• Rapid Fleet Expansion: ETO Motors added substantial volumes of electric 3W and 4W assets across major cities, with strong adoption in metro-feeder services, corporate mobility, government-linked deployments, and new airport operations. A major highlight was the launch of electric 4W mobility services at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru — a significant step in expanding premium, reliable EV fleet services for high-demand transit corridors.
• Strategic Partnerships: The year saw the formation of several high-impact partnerships. Collaborations with metro rail corporations, large enterprises, and logistics leaders enabled ETO Motors to deliver dependable electric mobility at scale. Importantly, ETO Motors entered into a strategic partnership with FlixBus Germany, powering electric intercity bus services between Hyderabad and Vijayawada, with expansion plans to additional cities, further strengthening India’s green intercity mobility landscape. 
• Charging & Infrastructure Growth: ETO Motors accelerated the deployment of captive charging stations, smart charging hubs, and energy-efficient infrastructure, enhancing fleet uptime, power availability, and operational visibility across its nationwide network.
• Operational Excellence & Technology: The organisation rolled out upgraded fleet-management systems, advanced telematics, enhanced driver-training modules, and data-driven performance tools. These improvements led to higher utilisation rates, improved safety parameters, and more efficient turnaround times.
• Identifying Mobility Pain Points & Building Multi-Modal Solutions: ETO Motors has long recognised that first- and last-mile connectivity remains one of India’s most persistent urban mobility challenges—characterised by fragmented services, inconsistent reliability, and costly transit gaps for passengers. To address this, ETO has been actively developing multi-modal mobility platforms powered by ROQIT, seamlessly integrating metro connectivity, feeder services, e-rickshaws, 4W EVs, and intercity routes. This tech-driven ecosystem aims to offer passengers a unified, predictable, and affordable mobility experience while enabling cities to enhance public transport utilisation.
• Sustainability Impact: Having clocked millions of clean kilometres in 2025, ETO Motors made a substantial contribution to emissions reduction, urban accessibility, and women-led livelihood generation through inclusive employment programmes.
• Kevadia Adivasi Women Development — 2025 also marked the fourth successful year of ETO Motors’ work in Kevadia, where the company has been empowering Adivasi women through dedicated driver-training, livelihood creation, and mobility-linked skilling initiatives. This long-term programme has emerged as a model for socially inclusive EV deployment in rural and semi-urban India.
• Strategic Investment: A significant development this year was AION-Tech acquiring a major stake in ETO Motors, strengthening the company’s technology backbone and supporting its ambitions to scale into a holistic, tech-enabled electric mobility ecosystem. 

StartupTalky: How is technology, especially AI, telematics, and battery intelligence, shaping your product roadmap?

Nirmal Reddy: At ETO Motors, technology is not an add-on — it is the foundation of our entire product roadmap. Every ETO vehicle is IoT-enabled and integrated into our proprietary fleet-management platform, the Fleet Maestro / EV-Technology Stack. Through this system, fleet operators can monitor vehicle location, battery status, charging behaviour, health parameters, and maintenance schedules in real time. This level of connectivity enables data-driven fleet operations: by tracking energy usage, battery performance, and vehicle health continuously, we improve uptime, optimise charging cycles, reduce operational interruptions, and help clients maximise fleet utilisation.

ROQIT, our in-house telematics and digital solutions arm, plays a central role in this transformation. Using advanced telematics hardware and software, ROQIT captures high-resolution data on driving patterns, energy consumption, battery temperature, charging efficiency, and vehicle diagnostics. This data is then analysed to generate actionable insights that support predictive maintenance, route optimisation, and energy management. ROQIT’s telematics layer enhances the intelligence of the entire ecosystem — making operations safer, more efficient, and more cost-effective for fleet partners.

On the product side, ETO Motors’ modular platform-based design for its three-wheeler range allows multiple variants — passenger, cargo, high-payload, refrigerated, and more — to be built on the same core architecture. This approach speeds up development, supports customisation for diverse applications, and streamlines manufacturing without the need to redesign core components for each variant.

These two pillars — smart, connected fleets through ROQIT + modular, flexible vehicle design — are shaping our future roadmap. As telematics, battery intelligence, and software analytics mature, we aim to deepen predictive maintenance capabilities, refine battery-health insights, and strengthen energy-optimisation algorithms. All of this contributes to lower operational costs and an improved total cost of ownership for fleet clients.

By integrating vehicle manufacturing, fleet operations, charging infrastructure, telematics, and software services, ETO Motors is building a vertically integrated EV mobility ecosystem. This structure ensures better control over reliability, performance, and service quality — delivering a comprehensive, technology-driven mobility solution as we scale.

StartupTalky: What partnerships, collaborations, or ecosystem developments played a key role in ETO Motors growth in 2025? 

Nirmal Reddy: Key Partnerships and Collaborations for ETO Motors includes:

• Cashurdrive — In 2025, ETO Motors partnered with Cashurdrive to launch an EV-based transit advertising programme across several major Indian cities, transforming over 2,000 of its electric vehicles into mobile advertising platforms while continuing regular mobility services.
• Women-Empowerment & Social-Initiative Partnerships (MOWO Social Initiatives, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation) — Through its collaborations with leading social-impact organisations, ETO Motors continued to advance women-led mobility programmes. These initiatives focused on training, awareness, and fleet-linked employment, reinforcing the company’s commitment to inclusive and equitable mobility.
• Bengaluru International Airport Collaboration — A major 2025 milestone was ETO Motors’ partnership with Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, where the company launched and scaled electric 4W fleet operations. This collaboration significantly enhanced sustainable airport-ground mobility and marked a key step in ETO Motors’ transition towards premium, high-demand EV services.
• FlixBus Germany Partnership & Intercity EV Bus Services — ETO Motors also strengthened its intercity credentials through a strategic collaboration with FlixBus Germany. Together, they launched electric intercity bus services between Hyderabad and Vijayawada, offering India’s first EV-powered intercity routes under a global mobility brand. Plans are already underway to expand this model to additional cities, accelerating the shift towards clean long-distance travel.

In 2025, several strategic partnerships and ecosystem developments played a pivotal role in accelerating ETO Motors’ growth. The collaboration with Cashurdrive unlocked a new revenue stream by converting over 2,000 electric vehicles into mobile transit-advertising units, strengthening unit economics and enhancing brand visibility across major Indian cities. Partnerships with social-impact organisations, including MOWO Social Initiatives and the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation, expanded ETO Motors’ women-led driver ecosystem through focused training, awareness, and fleet-linked employment programmes. A major milestone was the collaboration with Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, where ETO Motors launched electric four-wheeler fleet operations to deliver sustainable airport-ground mobility.

Additionally, the partnership with FlixBus Germany positioned ETO Motors as a pioneer in electric intercity transportation, with EV bus services introduced between Hyderabad and Vijayawada and plans underway to expand to more cities. Collectively, these collaborations strengthened ETO Motors’ operational scale, reduced costs, diversified revenue models, enhanced vehicle performance, and reinforced the company’s reputation as a technology-driven and socially responsible leader in India’s electric mobility landscape.

StartupTalky: What metrics matter the most to you when evaluating product success and market fit in the EV mobility space?

Nirmal Reddy: At ETO Motors, we evaluate product success and market fit using metrics that are widely recognised across the EV mobility ecosystem and validated by industry studies. Uptime remains a core indicator, as consistent vehicle availability is essential for fleet operations—echoing findings from NITI Aayog and RMI that reliability is a primary driver of EV adoption in India. Similarly, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a critical benchmark, and we assess how our vehicles help customers achieve lower operating costs over their lifecycle, in line with national reports that show EVs can offer significantly lower running expenses compared to ICE vehicles.

We also closely track charging time, energy efficiency, and range consistency, which are key determinants of utilisation and operational planning for logistics, passenger mobility, and shared-transport applications. Safety is another non-negotiable metric, and our approach aligns with industry frameworks that emphasise battery management, thermal stability, and compliance with AIS standards. Together, these parameters help us ensure that our vehicles meet the performance, efficiency, and safety expectations of modern fleet operators and public-sector partners.

StartupTalky: Looking ahead to 2026, what opportunities do you see emerging in India’s EV and last-mile mobility market?

Nirmal Reddy: Looking ahead to 2026, India’s EV and last-mile mobility market is poised for a major expansion, supported by strong policy push, improved charging infrastructure, and a rapidly maturing supply chain. From our perspective at ETO Motors, one of the biggest opportunities will come from the continued electrification of commercial mobility—an area highlighted by NITI Aayog and KPMG as the fastest-growing segment in India’s EV transition. With state governments strengthening EV adoption mandates for public transport, municipal services, and urban logistics, we expect wider deployment of electric three-wheelers, cargo vehicles, and shared-mobility platforms.

Another significant opportunity is the growth of battery intelligence, telematics, and connected mobility solutions, which leading industry reports identify as critical to improving fleet efficiency and lowering Total Cost of Ownership. As charging networks become more accessible—supported by FAME incentives and private-sector investment—the ecosystem will enable higher utilisation rates and broader inter-city use cases. We also see potential in emerging areas such as hub-based fleet electrification, low-emission zones, green campuses, and industrial EV mobility, all of which are gaining traction across major Indian cities. Overall, these trends point to a more integrated, technology-first EV landscape in 2026, opening the door for scalable, sustainable solutions across both enterprise and public-sector mobility.

StartupTalky:  What is your long-term vision for the company, and what strategic steps are planned for the next phase of growth?

Nirmal Reddy: At ETO Motors, our long-term vision is to become India’s most trusted and technologically advanced multi-modal electric mobility ecosystem — one that seamlessly connects first-mile, last-mile, and intercity movement through a single, integrated platform.

Over the next phase of growth, we are focused on three strategic pillars:

• Building a Unified Multi-Modal Mobility Platform Powered by ROQIT: Our next leap is the expansion of our multi-modal platform, designed to bring together electric three-wheelers, four-wheelers, cargo vehicles, and intercity EV buses into one coordinated system. Powered by our ROQIT telematics and software stack, this platform will provide real-time intelligence across vehicle health, charging availability, route planning, passenger demand, and fleet utilisation.

This creates a seamless mobility continuum — from metro-feeder services to airport transfers, city logistics, corporate mobility, and clean intercity travel.

• Deepening Vertical Integration to Strengthen Reliability and Scale: ETO Motors is uniquely positioned as a vertically integrated player combining:
• Vehicle manufacturing,
• Fleet operations,
• Smart charging infrastructure, and
• Software-led fleet management.

This integration gives us unparalleled control over uptime, safety, and cost efficiency. Going forward, we aim to expand captive charging hubs, enhance our modular vehicle platforms, and strengthen supply-chain readiness for scaling across multiple cities.

• Expanding National Footprint Through Strategic Partnerships: We plan to replicate our successful models in Bengaluru Airport, metro-rail ecosystems, and electric intercity operations with FlixBus. New collaborations with airports, city transit agencies, urban logistics operators, and state governments will accelerate our reach into high-demand corridors.

StartupTalky:  What practical advice would you give to founders building in India’s EV ecosystem today?

Nirmal Reddy: For founders building in India’s EV ecosystem today, our key advice is to focus on real-world reliability, not just product specs. India’s mobility market rewards solutions that consistently deliver uptime, safety, and predictable costs. Prioritise deep localisation - from components to supply chains - because India’s scale and cost sensitivity demand products engineered for local conditions. Build with data from day one: telematics, battery intelligence, and AI-driven insights will ultimately determine fleet performance and customer trust. Avoid chasing vanity metrics; instead, understand your customer’s economics and design for lower TCO and faster payback periods. Finally, staying close to policy and public-sector developments—metro networks, e-bus programmes, and urban mobility missions will unlock some of the biggest EV opportunities. In the EV space, the winners will be those who balance innovation with execution, and who solve genuine, on-ground mobility pain points at scale.

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