Ep# 14 | WTF is Happening with EV? Nikhil ft. Founders of Reva, Ather, Blusmart, and Ossus

So the point of today is to talk about electric vehicles. Anybody new looking to get into the industry, [upbeat music] we want to tell them the good, the bad, the ugly. [upbeat music] Ready? Rolling.

And action!

Uh, hi, guys. Thank you for coming to Bangalore, and, uh, thanks to my friends who are already in Bangalore. So the point of today is to talk about electric vehicles in the manner that anybody new looking to get into the industry after college, or someone who wants to start a business in EV, a young entrepreneur, we want to tell them the good, the bad, the ugly, uh, which part of the industry wi- may make sense for them to focus on, and what are the skill sets they might need to inculcate to have a long career, a good career in this industry. So maybe we can start with introductions. Uh, I'm sure many people know all of you, but, uh, let's start with Puneet.

So I, uh, was born and brought up in Calcutta, and I, um, did my schooling there. Uh, I'm born in '84, so I'm thir- thirty-nine. Um, shifted to Bombay in the year 2000. Uh, went to Sydenham College for my graduation.

Where is that?

Uh, Sydenham is in Bombay.

Mm-hmm.

On Churchgate B Road. Um, then I finished my graduation in 2005. Um, then went to London School of Economics for my master's in finance. Uh, did a year of, uh, MSc in finance there. Didn't want to come back to India, and, um, so studied one more year. Went to Aston Business School for my second master's. Um, so while I was there studying at Aston Business School-

So you did two masters in?

Yeah, in the UK. Yeah, one in London, one in Birmingham. Um...

Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend? [laughing]

[chuckles] Okay. I didn't-- I was not focused.

On girls?

Yeah.

What were you focused on?

Maybe just, uh, trying to find my way out, figuring out to start a business or something.

Have things changed at thirty-nine? H-how is this not an interview? [laughing]

[laughing]

I don't like that. I feel like that. Things have changed a little bit. Um, I come from a family business background, so my, third-generation entrepreneur, so everybody was doing something in the family. So I didn't want to join my family business and was twen- wanting to start on my own, so was trying to figure out what to do. I did two or three small startups, which didn't go along well. They were in the plastic space, small, very small startups, uh, that didn't go along well. So I... Yeah, so I decided that I'll go study outside. Let's probably learn something, and while I was studying at, um, at Aston, I chanced upon... During my dissertation, I read about the role of clean energy and renewable energy. That will be-- That was game changing for me. And I came back to India, and I met some solar panel manufacturers, who at that time were manufacturing solar panels. Uh, met them in India and realized that there could be a massive opportunity to make solar panels in India and export into Europe. Europe at that time was the biggest market. Uh, they were setting up these massive solar power plants in Spain and Italy. They had that fit feeding tariff. So I then decided that we'll set up a solar panel manufacturing facility, and it was called PLG Power, my first company. PLG is the initials of my grandfather, Prashottamlal Goyal. He passed away, uh, in April 2007, at the age of seventy-eight. So I thought, "Okay, my first company that I'll f- uh, that I'll start should be with his initials." And I started that in 2007, uh, eight, uh, Jan of 2008, to manufacture solar panels. Uh, the manufacturing facility was at Nashik, at Sinnar. So that was the whole idea, to make solar panels. So did that for four years, uh, between 2008 to 2012. Uh, the idea was to go back into solar cell manufacturing, uh, further back into wafer manufacturing, and each was a larger investment. But then the market just crashed in Europe. It was very bad timing. Market just came down, you know, string of bankruptcies in, in-