For years, one question dominated conversations around electric vehicles: How far can they go?
Range anxiety became almost synonymous with the consumer’s hesitation towards electric mobility. The assumption was simple: give consumers a vehicle capable of travelling 400 or 500 kilometres on a single charge, and much of the resistance to EV adoption would disappear.
Naveen Gupta, Founder & CEO of Trev Mobility, discovered that the reality was considerably more complicated.
Speaking at the TERI–IHC Lecture and Discussion Series session, “Beyond Tailpipe: Electric Mobility at the Intersection of Air Quality and Energy Security,” at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on 21 September, Gupta drew on Trev’s experience to explain how consumer expectations have evolved and why the next phase of electric mobility will require more than better batteries.
When Trev began developing its electric mobility proposition, the company started with two models offering what appeared to be reassuring range of approximately 400–500 kilometres.
“We started only with two models, which have excellent range, like 400 kilometres, 500 kilometres,” Naveen Gupta recalled.
The assumption was that range would address the biggest concern surrounding EV adoption.
Instead, the same concern returned.
“We launched around, we went behind the market, and guess what? It was the same issue again.”
That experience changed the company’s strategy.
The lesson from the consumer
For Naveen Gupta, the experience demonstrated that the EV conversation could not be reduced to battery range.
Customers were not simply asking whether a vehicle could technically travel 400 or 500 kilometres. They were assessing whether an electric vehicle could provide the reliability and predictability they expected from a mobility service.
That distinction became important for Trev.
Instead of concentrating primarily on local routes, the company began positioning its electric mobility offering around longer-distance journeys and premium mobility.
“If you see our app, the local routes are quite expensive. We’re more or less focused on solving long-distance kinds of airports and all sorts of stations.”
The strategy emerged from observing actual customer behaviour rather than simply responding to theoretical concerns about EV technology.
Trev’s users began taking its electric vehicles on increasingly longer journeys. Gupta cited examples of customers travelling well beyond Delhi-NCR, including journeys towards Agra and Prayagraj.
For the company, these experiences demonstrated that electric vehicles could serve longer-distance mobility but only when the supporting ecosystem was able to keep pace.
The question had therefore shifted from “Can an EV travel far enough?” to “Can an EV deliver the journey reliably?”
The charging challenge does not disappear with range
A longer-range vehicle may reduce the frequency with which it needs to charge, but it does not eliminate the charging problem for a commercial mobility operator.
Naveen Gupta highlighted what happens when several vehicles return to a base at approximately the same time.
“The challenge is remaining on the charging.”
For an electric mobility company, vehicles do not simply arrive at a charging facility whenever convenient. Their movement is tied to customer demand, driver schedules and operational cycles.
If several cars return simultaneously, charging demand can rise sharply. Without proper planning, this can affect vehicle availability and, ultimately, the customer experience.
Naveen Gupta pointed to the importance of route optimisation in managing this complexity.
“If you don’t have a proper route optimisation plan… it becomes very difficult to actually manage that.”
The problem is amplified by the unpredictable nature of mobility demand. A vehicle may be expected at one location and then suddenly be required elsewhere. Operators therefore have to keep vehicles moving while simultaneously ensuring that sufficient charging capacity is available.
For Gupta, the challenge is not simply installing more chargers. It is creating an operational system in which vehicles, routes, charging and customer demand work together.
Taking electric mobility beyond the city
Trev’s experience also illustrates the importance of looking beyond the conventional urban EV use case.
Gupta pointed to the company’s experience operating on longer routes and highways. The development of charging infrastructure along major corridors has helped make such journeys increasingly possible.
But infrastructure has to keep pace with demand.
As more electric vehicles use the same routes, charging points can become congested, particularly at peak times.
For a private vehicle owner, this may mean waiting longer to charge. For a commercial mobility operator, the consequences can be more serious because a delayed vehicle can translate directly into a delayed customer journey.
The challenge, therefore, is not only to establish charging corridors but to ensure that those corridors can accommodate increasing volumes of electric mobility.
The experience reinforces Naveen Gupta’s broader argument: electric mobility is an ecosystem, not simply a vehicle technology.
The business has to work
The transition to electric mobility also has a commercial dimension.
For operators such as Trev, the environmental benefits of EVs are important, but the business model must ultimately be viable.
This is particularly relevant because electric vehicles generally require a higher upfront investment than comparable conventional vehicles.
Gupta’s concern is that this initial cost can become a barrier even when the operating economics of an EV may be attractive over its lifetime.
“The cost price of the vehicle, all the assets become very heavy.”
That creates a financing challenge.
A mobility company may be willing to adopt electric vehicles, but acquiring a fleet requires significant capital. If lenders are uncertain about the underlying assets, financing becomes more difficult and expensive.
And this is where Gupta identified one of the most important unresolved questions in the EV ecosystem: residual value.
Who determines the value of an electric vehicle?
Banks, non-banking financial companies and other lenders are accustomed to assessing conventional vehicles and estimating what an asset will be worth over time.
Electric vehicles introduce additional uncertainty.
The value of the vehicle depends not only on the condition of the vehicle itself but also on the health and remaining life of its battery.
Today, Naveen Gupta argued, there is still considerable uncertainty around how that residual value should be assessed.
“The financial ecosystem in India… [is] ready for it. Because one factor of this becomes very difficult to measure today is the residual value of an EV or battery.”
For a fleet operator, this uncertainty matters.
If a lender does not have a reliable way of determining what an electric vehicle will be worth after several years, it becomes harder to structure loans, leases and other forms of asset financing.
Naveen Gupta suggested that there is a role for government and the wider industry in creating greater clarity around these calculations.
Standardising the information behind the asset
The challenge is not limited to financing. He also pointed to the rapidly expanding variety of electric vehicles and battery technologies in the market.
With numerous models and variants entering the ecosystem, operators need to understand the condition of the vehicle and its battery in a consistent and measurable way.
“What is the state of health of the battery, the kind of experience?”
This points towards the need for clearer technological standards and measurable parameters around battery health, degradation and vehicle performance.
If an operator, lender or buyer can reliably establish the condition of a battery and estimate its remaining useful life, the asset becomes easier to value.
That, in turn, could make financing more predictable and reduce one of the barriers to fleet electrification.
For Naveen Gupta, standardisation is therefore not merely a technical issue. It is part of building confidence in the entire electric-mobility market.
From early adopters to a scalable ecosystem
Trev’s experience reflects the broader evolution of India’s EV market. The first phase was about proving that electric vehicles could work. The next phase was about improving range and expanding charging infrastructure.
The emerging challenge is more complex: how do we build an ecosystem in which electric mobility can scale commercially?
That requires reliable charging, intelligent route planning, appropriate vehicle deployment and a financial system capable of valuing electric assets.
It also requires listening to consumers.
Trev’s experience with 400–500-kilometre vehicles demonstrated that solving the technical problem of range does not automatically solve the customer’s concern.
Consumers ultimately want a service that works.
They want to know that the vehicle will arrive when promised, complete the journey, and that the infrastructure behind it will function when required.
For Naveen Gupta, this is where the next chapter of India’s electric mobility story lies.
The country has moved considerably beyond the days when EVs were defined primarily by limited range and scarce charging infrastructure. But the transition will not be complete merely because more electric vehicles are sold.
It will become sustainable when the vehicle, battery, charging network, operator, customer and financial system begin working as one ecosystem.
The question is no longer simply how far an electric vehicle can travel.
It is whether the entire system can take it and its passengers the distance with confidence.
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