The company has announced that deliveries will begin in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025.
On Monday, Ashok Leyland, the premier commercial vehicle maker of the Hinduja Group in India, in collaboration with Billion Electric Mobility—a subsidiary of the BillionE Group—introduced a new lineup of electric trucks. This launch is a notable advancement for India’s emerging electric vehicle (EV) market. The models released include the AVTR 55T Electric, BOSS 19T Electric, and BOSS 14T Electric.
The current electric truck order book for Ashok Leyland includes 180 units, with an estimated value of about Rs 150 crore. This order book encompasses both the BOSS electric trucks and the 55T electric tractors. The company anticipates starting deliveries in the last quarter of the fiscal year 2025.
Shenu Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO of Ashok Leyland, underscored the importance of this launch, remarking that this could very well be the country’s largest order of electric trucks. He further mentioned that the production at the company’s forthcoming modular facility in Hosur will be incrementally increased.
Kartikey Hariyani, Founder and CEO of Billion E-Mobility and ChargeZone, elaborated on the strategic purpose of the partnership. He is steering his firm to promote e-mobility as a service, which could find applications across various industries, including FMCG, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and engineering on intercity routes. Hariyani emphasised that the goal isn’t immediate cost savings but rather achieving cost parity with diesel. He highlighted the gradual reduction in the total cost of ownership for electric vehicles, which is making the equivalence with conventional fuels a feasible target.
Hariyani also addressed the prevalent challenges of EV charging infrastructure, particularly the “chicken and egg” conundrum. His company is actively working on this by setting up a network of “supercharging stations” strategically placed every 100-150 kilometres along major highways. This network is planned to extend over more than 5,000 kilometres of roadway in the next few years.
He detailed that these chargers are designed to fully recharge electric trucks in just 60 minutes, aligning perfectly with drivers’ mandatory rest periods, thus efficiently integrating charging time with scheduled breaks.
