Reva - "World's highest selling electric car"

With 700 of its electric vehicles plying on the roads of London, the Reva seems to have the highest number of electric cars in one city anywhere in the world. This is an achievement, though not quite what I had hoped for when I posted on the Reva's entry in the UK back in 2005.

In December last year, Reva received an investment of $20 million from Draper Fisher Jurveston and Global Environment Fund. This was the first investment for GEF in an electric car company, and it did come at a good time for Reva Electric Car Company (RECC) which was going through a financial crisis. The market needed better marketing and better cars, implying more R&D spend, but the sales pipeline was not generating enough optimism in that direction.

The company also claims to have become the "highest selling on-road electric vehicle globally" last year. Also, "Reva car is currently available on sale in India and is also marketed in UK", and some other European countries. Norway, Spain and Greece are likely to see some focussed marketing in the next few months in part via auto shows.

To put things into perspective, RECC has so far only sold 1800 cars globally. Looks like the company is pretty confident of that changing soon. Apparently it expects to sell another 300 cars in London alone in the next 6 months. And in the next 18 months, RECC intends to ramp-up its production from the current capacity of 6000 units annually, to 35,000 units annually in 18 months. That might help it retain its position as the top manufacturer of electric cars from a Chinese company which will build a plant capable of producing 20,000 units annually by 2007.