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World’s Largest E-Scooter Factory Aims to Make EV Each 2 Seconds
(Bloomberg) -- Bhavish Aggarwal surveys the empty 500-acre expanse encircled by neon-painted homes, tiny shrines and mango groves. The high-profile Ola founder hopes to erect the world’s largest electric scooter plant on this vacant plot on Bangalore’s outskirts within the next 12 weeks, cranking out about 2 million a year -- a landmark for one of India’s largest startups.A two-and-a-half hour drive southeast of Bangalore, Aggarwal’s envisioned $330 million mega-factory marks a bold foray into uncharted territory for an entrepreneur who’s spent 10 years building a ride-hailing giant. His follow-up Ola Electric is getting into an electric vehicle market already crowded by names from Tesla Inc. to China’s Nio Inc. -- albeit with a humble two-wheeler initially -- but that could play in a $200 billion domestic EV industry in a decade.If all goes according to plan, his Ola Electric Mobility Pvt hopes to make 10 million vehicles annually or 15% of the world’s e-scooters by the summer of 2022, starting with sales abroad later this year. That would be one scooter rolling out every two seconds after the plant expands next year. It’s the first step in Aggarwal’s goal to eventually assemble a full line-up of electric cars in a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India and sustainable mobility ambitions.“It’s a vehicle we’ve engineered ground-up so India can get a seat at the world EV table,” the 35-year-old said in an interview last week. Indian companies “have the smarts and energy to leapfrog into the future of EV.”Aggarwal is getting into the market just as the core business of ride-hailing slows during the pandemic. Fume-spewing scooters and motorcycles remain the most popular mode of transport in India’s infamously polluted cities. But the country is now pushing electric vehicles and self-reliance in battery technologies that could, according to the think-tank CEEW Centre for Energy Finance, underpin a $206 billion EV market in 10 years.That won’t be easy. Middle-class Indians worry about air quality but are reluctant -- at current rates -- to fork out twice the price of a regular scooter for an electric version. Aggarwal too will have to fend off competition from not just local rivals Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto, but also up-and-comers such as Ather Energy and Chinese brands including Niu Technologies.Read more: Why One Startup Founder Turned Down a $1.1 Billion SoftBank DealThe entrepreneur takes inspiration from the likes of Tesla, Nio and Xpeng Inc., which have out-engineered established auto giants with ever-cheaper batteries and over-the-air software capabilities, but he’s taking a different tack. He wants to sell affordable two-, three- and four-wheelers for urban rides. “Our ambition is to build the world’s leading urban mobility EV company,” he said.Ola Electric is Aggarwal’s second act. A decade ago, he pioneered ride-hailing in the country and took on Uber Technologies Inc., expanding across 200 cities before heading overseas to the U.K, Australia and New Zealand. His EV startup was incorporated in 2017 and became a billion-dollar company, or unicorn, two years later, when SoftBank Group Corp. and Tiger Global Management forked out hundreds of millions. It was the second time for the pair of global investors, even though Aggarwal had fought them to maintain control of Ola.This time round, he’s even more firmly in the driving seat. He’s also secured capital from Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. and recently won over more backers whose names he wouldn’t reveal.“We’re very well-capitalized and investor interest is unprecedented,” said Aggarwal.Aggarwal, who often interrupts himself to ask “What do you think?,” wants to introduce five two-wheeler models at the outset, including mass-market, premium and self-balancing versions. Even more audaciously, he wants to get the first electric cars on Indian roads in 18 to 24 months. He talks about someday selling autonomous vehicles and futuristic four-wheelers that don’t look like cars.Read more: Next Big Wave of Tech Unicorn Listings Could Be in IndiaOn this particular Thursday, he zipped around on a sleek scooter prototype in the office park in the Koramangala neighborhood, the epicenter of Bangalore’s startup scene. He showed off novel lighting, removable batteries and a large storage trunk. His plan is to sell the scooters digitally as well as via dealerships, offering monthly payment plans to make it easier on buyers’ pockets.Vehicle affordability could be key to cracking the India market, and it boils down to the running cost per kilometer. Aggarwal’s not revealing prices yet but said his product would compete with traditional scooters going for about $1,000 apiece. “We’ll drive costs down by playing at scale.”To keep costs in check, Ola is designing, engineering and manufacturing its own battery pack, motor, vehicle computer and software. Like Tesla, it wants to keep costs down by building its own power cells. It’s testing charging solutions and battery-swapping stations. Last year, it acquired Amsterdam-based smart scooter startup Etergo BV to jumpstart its own scooter manufacturing.Ola’s factory site will sport more than 3,000 robots working alongside 10,000 workers. Software built by its 1,000-member team -- mostly engineers -- will divvy up the work. The factory’s roof will be covered with solar panels and be carbon negative. Two supplier parks at either end of the complex will make about half of the scooter components required.Aggarwal oversees it all scrupulously. Once a week, he trudges around the construction site checking on progress. On other days, cameras mounted on tall pipes around the site relay the action directly to his desk. His pride is evident: a graduate of the elite Indian Institute of Technology, he said he designed the automated storage, retrieval and delivery system for the electric scooters and won a patent for it.“It has to come in handy sometime, right?” he said of his education, using the popular Hindi phrase “kahin toh kaam aana chahiye na.”India’s Ride-Hailing Honeymoon is Over: Fully ChargedFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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Wishful thinking on China will not serve American interests
Years ago in Beijing, I interviewed the chief executive of a European clean tech company that was a market leader in China at the time. Why was falling from pole position to fourth place good news? It was one of many moments in the past two decades that have made me wonder why American policymakers and corporate leaders ever thought that China would simply take its place in the existing world order and trade system.
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- NewsBloomberg
Saudi Arabia’s Bold Plan to Rule the $700 Billion Hydrogen Market
(Bloomberg) -- Sun-scorched expanses and steady Red Sea breezes make the northwest tip of Saudi Arabia prime real estate for what the kingdom hopes will become a global hub for green hydrogen.As governments and industries seek less-polluting alternatives to hydrocarbons, the world’s biggest crude exporter doesn’t want to cede the burgeoning hydrogen business to China, Europe or Australia and lose a potentially massive source of income. So it’s building a $5 billion plant powered entirely by sun and wind that will be among the world’s biggest green hydrogen makers when it opens in the planned megacity of Neom in 2025.The task of turning a patch of desert the size of Belgium into a metropolis powered by renewable energy falls to Peter Terium, the former chief executive officer of RWE AG, Germany’s biggest utility, and clean-energy spinoff Innogy SE. His performance will help determine whether a country dependent on petrodollars can transition into a supplier of non-polluting fuels.“There’s nothing I’ve ever seen or heard of this dimension or challenge,” Terium said. “I’ve been spending the last two years wrapping my mind around ‘from scratch,’ and now we’re very much in execution mode.”Hydrogen is morphing from a niche power source — used in zeppelins, rockets and nuclear weapons — into big business, with the European Union alone committing $500 billion to scale up its infrastructure. Huge obstacles remain to the gas becoming a major part of the energy transition, and skeptics point to Saudi Arabia’s weak track record so far capitalizing on what should be a competitive edge in the renewables business, especially solar, where there are many plans but few operational projects.But countries are jostling for position in a future global market, and hydrogen experts list the kingdom as one to watch.The U.K. is hosting 10 projects to heat buildings with the gas, China is deploying fuel-cell buses and commercial vehicles, and Japan is planning to use the gas in steelmaking. U.S. presidential climate envoy John Kerry urged the domestic oil and gas industry to embrace hydrogen’s “huge opportunities.”That should mean plenty of potential customers for the plant called Helios Green Fuels. Saudi Arabia is setting its sights on becoming the world’s largest supplier of hydrogen — a market that BloombergNEF estimates could be worth as much as $700 billion by 2050.“You’re seeing a more diversified portfolio of energy exports that is more resilient,” said Shihab Elborai, a Dubai-based partner at consultant Strategy&. “It’s diversified against any uncertainties in the rate and timing of the energy transition.”Blueprints are being drawn and strategies are being announced, but it’s still early days for the industry. Hydrogen is expensive to make without expelling greenhouse gases, difficult to store and highly combustible.Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. The current cost of producing a kilogram is a little under $5, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.Saudi Arabia possesses a competitive advantage in its perpetual sunshine and wind, and vast tracts of unused land. Helios’s costs likely will be among the lowest globally and could reach $1.50 per kilogram by 2030, according to BNEF. That’s cheaper than some hydrogen made from non-renewable sources today. It’s more expensive to produce renewable energy in Europe, and the continent’s anticipated demand while implementing a Green Deal should exceed its own supply, Terium said. That $1 trillion-plus stimulus package will try to make the continent carbon-neutral.“By no means will they be able to produce all the hydrogen themselves,” he said. “There’s just not enough North Sea or usable water for offshore wind.”Terium, who is Dutch, joined Neom in 2018 to design its energy, water and food networks. His enthusiasm for technologies such as electric vehicles and digital networks wasn’t matched by Innogy’s investors, but it is by the backers of Neom.The most important of those is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 35-year-old de facto ruler, who envisions Neom as a zero-emissions exemplar helping transform society and the economy. The hydrogen plant is part of that vision. But while Neom’s $500 billion price tag prompts questions about whether it will go ahead exactly as planned, the hydrogen effort doesn’t depend on the megacity’s overall success.There are other challenges, too: The country produces one-eighth of the world’s oil supply, but its operational renewables capacity is small by regional standards, and it’s starting from zero with green hydrogen.The government is partnering with Acwa Power, a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based power developer partly owned by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, and Air Products and Chemicals Inc., a $58 billion company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to build the green hydrogen plant.The trio is splitting the costs of Helios, which will use 4 gigawatts of solar and wind power.“As the first gigawatt plant, we will have an advantage in developing further innovation,” Terium said. “This is not going to be the end of the game.”For starters, Helios will produce 650 tons of hydrogen a day by electrolysis – enough for conversion to 1.2 million tons per year of green ammonia. Air Products will buy all of that ammonia, which is easier to ship than liquid or gaseous hydrogen, and convert it back upon delivery to customers.Enough green hydrogen will be produced to maintain about 20,000 city buses. There are about 3 million buses operating worldwide, and Air Products wants to be a mainstay in depots switching to hydrogen, said Simon Moore, vice president of investor relations.“We’re not going to wait until this project comes on-stream in 2025 to think about additional capacity,” he said.Fuel-cell vehicles could capture as much as 30% of bus-fleet volume globally by 2050, with growth coming primarily from China and the European Union, according to BNEF. Moore declined to identify Helios’s clients.Hydrogen will cost more than polluting alternatives at first, but enough governments and businesses face stringent carbon targets that need the gas to meet them, Moore said. Thirteen nations have hydrogen strategies in place, and another 11 are preparing theirs, according to BNEF.Germany said it needs “enormous” volumes of green hydrogen, and it hopes Saudi Arabia will be a supplier.“The interest Saudi Arabia has had from investors leads us to believe that there is a sound economic case for hydrogen, even at current prices,” a spokesman for the Energy Ministry said.At the same time, the government is trying to boost its own scant use of renewable energy. Currently, under 700 megawatts operate nationwide -- less than 2% of Spain’s installed capacity. The nation plans to meet half of its power needs from renewables by 2030 and has several projects under construction or soon to start.Saudi Arabia also is one of the few countries regularly burning crude to make electricity. The highly polluting practice reached a four-year peak in August, and critics say the energy used by the Neom plant should be diverted into the national grid instead.Yet the focus remains on exports. Petrostates stand to lose as much as $13 trillion by 2040 because of climate-change targets, and Saudi Arabia is among those expected to be most affected.The hydrogen plant will produce 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day at most, hardly a match for the 9 million barrels of crude the kingdom pumps daily. Even so, finding a way to corner part of the clean-fuels market represents a necessary economic lifeline.“It’s sponsored at the highest possible level, so if any project happens, it’s got to be this,” Elborai said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
