India’s passenger-vehicle market has witnessed astonishing growth in the past decade. Barring the current hiccups, on account of ongoing urbanisation, increasing expenditure from the middle-class and young generation, and the country’s economic growth and supportive regulations and policies, India is expected to emerge as the world’s third-largest passenger vehicle market in future. However, the growth story will bring severe challenges for the parking space segment, especially in metro cities for which parking space has been a perennial issue.

As per a survey, a person spends an average of 17 hours a year for searching parking slots in New York, and the situation is grimmer in India where on average a person spends around 80 hours per year on finding parking. However, the situation varies in different cities.

Amit Lakhotia, Founder and CEO, Parviom Technologies, which owns Park+, faced car parking-related issues like any other Indians residing in metro cities. “Every day, we face challenges in finding an available parking slot, be it in office parking, malls, hotels or any other busy places. This leads to frustration and loss of time and fuel as well,” says Lakhotia. Due to difficulty in finding spaces for parking, people park their vehicles in the non-parking area or on the roads that occupies half of the road and which again causes traffic congestion, accidents, environmental hazards and even criminal activities.

“Parking related day-to-day issues were on my mind for some time while I was working with Paytm,” recalls Lakhotia. Having faced such parking-related issues, Amit Lakhotia found a business opportunity and launched the App, Park+, in 2019, which provides a suite of solutions around parking and more. With the help of Park+ app, users can discover parking, book their slot as well as other services such as car wash and pay digitally. They also provide RFID based security solutions to apartments and corporate setups.

Early this year, Park+ has raised $11 million in a financing round co-led by venture capital funds Sequoia India and Matrix Partners India. Prominent angel investors, including Deep Kalra, Rajesh Magow, Ashish Hemrajani, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal also participated in the round. Park+ is also the first company to collaborate with Aarogya Setu app for crowd management in malls.

The Park+ business model starts with identifying hot spots and taking suppliers- parking operators -onboard in these areas. For a selected site, the company takes the responsibility to build and maintain the infrastructure needed for the business. Infrastructure includes different servers and hardware. Light hardware is used to monitor entry and exit, while complicated hardware is used for barriers, parking sensors and RFID based security solutions. “Deployment of infrastructure is based on the needs, but charges vary accordingly,” adds Lakhotia.

Park+ earns a commission from the parking operators of the parking space and a service charge from that availing of the service.

Lakhotia is confident that his app-based business will boom on the surging numbers of smartphone users and operators. Explaining further, he says, “Till 2015-16, the internet had not reached to the last mile space in any sector. Online search, ordering, payments, tracking and delivery were not as smooth as of today. However, Ola, Uber, Swiggy and other e-commerce portals brought a revolution in the online payment system and have made it very convenient for users and last-mile operators. Online businesses are also taking good efforts on their last mile employees for reading maps and handling deliveries. Till last a few years, parking operators did not have smartphones with internet connectivity, but now they have. Users and operators were ready, so we felt this is the right time to launch the business.”

India had the world’s second-largest internet population of around 483 million users in 2018, and, of these, 390 million users accessed the internet via their mobile phones. As per a report, India will have over 760 million smartphone users in 2021.

Mobile-phone based parking apps have already been running in the developed markets such as the USA and Europe, but challenges for Park+ will be unique and tough considering the rapidly concentrating population, unplanned structures, and scarcity and skyrocketing prices of lands in cities. Expansion of cities in the western world have been well planned, and vehicle parking has been an integral part of the design of the new cities and the development of old cities. With the growing urbanisation, India is likely to have over 500 million people living in cities by 2030.

Considering the challenges for finding and booking parking space in India, the sweet spot for the Park+ is to help users to find and book parking spaces more conveniently and parking operators to utilise parking spaces more optimally.

“Since there is a minimal scope to build new infrastructure to make parking sites, we focus on to make these parking spaces available more efficiently. For instance, on weekdays, parking space is fully occupied in corporate parks, but malls, hotels and shopping complexes are less crowded, so are their parking sites. This scenario is vice versa on weekends. If a corporate park is near to a mall, the former can use the parking site of the latter on weekdays; the same can be done vice versa on weekends. That is how parking space can be used effectively, and operators’ revenue can go up,” explains Lakhotia.

Though as now of Park+ is offering its services in major cities, it sees opportunities in Tier -2 as well. Residents in metro cities are still reluctant to buy a car owing parking and traffic issues and opt for the shared mobility but growing middle-class incomes pushing car sales in Tier-2 cities. “What parking-related issues we are facing in the Tier-1 cities, eventually we will face the same in Tier-2 in future. So, we also see big business opportunities in Tier-2 cities in the country,” predicts Lakhotia.

Park+ will also explore possibilities to tie up with city corporations which operate parking sites in the cities. “We are looking for such tie-ups. It is just a matter of time when we can have to tie up with municipal corporations.”

Apart from the core service, Park+ is also offering services for insurance, pollution control certificate, RTO service, and information on traffic rules and fuel prices. The company now plans to widen its service offering with vehicle services, maintenance, washing and others. “Some of these services will be provided by third parties, while some services we will provide to the customer directly,” adds Lakhotia.

The company will also explore the option to have tie-ups with OEs to provide the Park+ inbuilt services in their vehicles. “We will try to make available our services to OEs as the business scales up.”

Lakhotia has spent more than ten years building significant size internet businesses. He is ex-Paytm, Tokopedia and Makemytrip and played a critical role in scaling them to multi-billion dollar companies. His experience with the internet business is helping him to build his own business. “Paytm is a digital platform which is being used by masses in India. It is being used by auto drivers, tea sellers, literally by everyone. The distribution of Paytm is available everywhere for both users and merchants in both urban and rural areas. When we started the business, we never thought we would go that big. It does not matter how great your product is; it should work on all devices and networks. The product should win the trust of users since you are handling their money. Transparency is must in internet businesses,” says Lakhotia.

Today, the company has around two lakh subscribers, and Lakhotia expects the subscriber number will reach two million by 2021. The company adds 40,000 cars to the network every month, and 300,000 cars have their RFID tags. So far, the company has set up 800 sites in India. “Currently, we have around 18,000 real-time slots available, and overall, we have 60,000 slots.”

Talking on challenges, Lakhotia says Park+ is a pioneer in the business, and the challenges are new and unpredictable. “Since it is a real-time business, the challenge is how to deliver the services in the expected time. Also, this is a low-ticket business; we will have to make sure it will work smoothly.” (MT)

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WACKER is presenting a portfolio of battery electric vehicle safety innovations at the Battery Show in Stuttgart, Germany, running from June 9 to June 11. Among the products featured at the company’s Hall 1, Booth K45, are a ceramifying silicone for thermal barriers, thermally conductive potting compounds for power electronics and materials under the ELASTOSIL, SEMICOSIL, SILRES and WACKER Silgel brands. The ceramifying silicone notably enhances heat and flame resistance, while the potting compounds enable effective temperature control with minimal sedimentation, allowing processing after long storage without complex pretreatment.

New potting compounds for thermal management take centre stage as another key exhibit. The spotlight falls on ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC, both filled addition-curing silicone elastomers that cure at room temperature, enabling energy-saving handling of large components. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC offers a thermal conductivity of 1.6 W/mK, while ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC achieves 2.4 W/mK.

Thermally conductive potting compounds must balance on-spec thermal conductivity with low viscosity, but low viscosity can cause particulate fillers to sediment and cake after prolonged storage. Redispersing such fillers is time-consuming and may require special mixing equipment. WACKER has now eliminated these concerns with the optimised rheological properties of its new products, making sedimentation and agglomeration effects irrelevant for customers.

Even if fillers settle under unfavourable transport or storage conditions, standard mixing equipment can easily redisperse them. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC feature low viscosities of 5,500 and 8,000 mPa•s, respectively, allowing quick, bubble-free filling of gaps as small as a few hundred micrometres. Their room-temperature curing eliminates the need for ovens regardless of component size.

These heat-resistant, low-emission formulations are primarily used in electromobility battery chargers, DC/DC converters and inverters for thermal management of discrete components like coils or inductors. Other silicones for electromobility include SILRES MK, a methyl silicone resin for mechanical and thermal barriers and ELASTOSIL CM 18x potting compounds for side potting of cells and top potting of pressure-relief vents, providing electrical and thermal insulation without impairing vent function.

ELASTOSIL R 531/60, a ceramifying silicone rubber for busbar insulation in high-voltage batteries, rounds out the offerings. This extrudable material improves electric vehicle safety by ceramifying in a fire, encasing busbars in a ceramic layer to maintain electrical insulation. WACKER is demonstrating all these solutions live at the Stuttgart exhibition.

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ELANTAS Beck India Ltd. has announced a strategic push to strengthen its speciality chemicals portfolio in response to the country’s rapidly expanding data centre infrastructure sector. The company, recognised for its expertise in electrical insulation and electronic protection, aims to support the evolving technical demands of this high-growth market.

The firm’s product range includes wire enamels, high and low voltage insulation materials, varnishes, resins, potting compounds and electronic protection solutions. These materials serve critical components across data centre ecosystems, such as transformers, generators, motors, power distribution units, cooling systems, server room electronics and battery energy storage systems.

India’s data centre capacity is growing swiftly due to rising artificial intelligence workloads, cloud computing, 5G rollouts and stricter data localisation norms. As facilities shift towards higher density and always-on operations, the need for reliable electrical infrastructure has intensified, placing greater emphasis on thermal management, cooling efficiency, electronics protection and uninterrupted energy storage.

Leveraging over 70 years of experience in speciality chemicals, ELANTAS Beck India Ltd. continues to enhance its capabilities through application-driven innovation, technology transfers and ongoing material development. The company remains focused on aligning with emerging industry standards for efficiency, reliability and performance across critical electrical and electronic applications.

Anurag Roy, Managing Director, ELANTAS Beck India Ltd., said, “As India’s data centre ecosystem continues to expand, the demand for reliable and high-performance electrical infrastructure is increasing significantly. This is creating strong opportunities for advanced insulation and protection solutions across critical applications that enable uninterrupted operations of these facilities. With our proven chemistry in electrical insulation and electronic protection, ELANTAS is well-positioned to support this evolution through application-focused chemistries designed for reliability, efficiency and long-term operational performance.”

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Greaves Finance, the EV-focused non-banking financial company (NBFC) subsidiary of Greaves Cotton, has announced the successful deployment of its previously sanctioned institutional debt of INR 2.23 billion.

The capital injection, executed during the April-March 2026 fiscal cycle, has accelerated the retail lending footprint of its multi-brand electric vehicle financing platform, ev.fin, scaling its physical presence to 74 cities across India. The entity plans to surpass 80 operational cities by July 2026.

The INR 2.23 billion institutional capital was raised through a calculated asset-liability mix consisting of Listed Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) and structured term loans. The fundraise was anchored by a consortium of tier-one institutional lenders and asset management firms, including AK Capital, Northern Arc Investment Managers, AU Small Finance Bank, Ambit Finvest, MAS Financial Services and Maanveeya.

Backed by this capital deployment and rising consumer credit demand, the company's financial metrics as of March 2026 stand at INR 5.22 billion of Managed Assets Under Management (AUM), cumulative loan disbursements exceeding INR 7.74 billion, which includes over 55,000 active retail and fleet accounts.

Traditional automotive financing heavily weights a borrower's static income profile. In contrast, ev.fin utilises a differentiated, OEM-agnostic asset underwriting model that structures loan terms based on the real-time thermal health, degradation curves, and residual resale value of the EV battery pack.

The platform is directly embedded into the point-of-sale (POS) dealerships of major electric two-wheeler (E2W) and three-wheeler (E3W) original equipment manufacturers, including Ather Energy, Ampere, River, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor Company, Suzuki and Ultraviolette.

The platform's proprietary underwriting framework allows it to issue specialised, risk-adjusted credit instruments that track the entire functional lifecycle of an electric vehicle:

P B Sunil Kumar, Executive Director & CEO, Greaves Finance, said, “The deployment of substantial funds from our existing INR 2.23 billion, marks an important milestone for ev.fin and reflects strong institutional and investor trust. Our institutional partnerships and investor endorsement have provided a robust foundation, which demonstrates support for our differentiated business model and is a ringing endorsement of the way we have decided to scale the business."

"As India’s electric mobility market accelerates, innovative and accessible financing solutions will remain central to unlocking the next phase of growth. Recognising this potential, we are actively working toward expanding our lender ecosystem to support our next growth cycle while maintaining robust underwriting and portfolio quality,” he concluded.

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The Mexican federal government has officially unveiled the prototype for Olinia, the country's first domestic electric vehicle (EV) brand. Coordinated by the Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (SECIHTI) and manufactured in Puebla, the project represents Mexico’s strategic shift from a pure export-oriented assembly hub to a developer of national intellectual property says a report by Mexico Business News.

Commercial production for Olinia is slated to begin in 2027, with the brand looking to challenge the historical dominance of foreign manufacturing frameworks.

Claudia Sheinbaum, President, Mexico, said, “Olinia represents the seed of a new innovation ecosystem built from Mexico."

The initiative directly addresses Mexico's long-standing reliance on final-assembly manufacturing under trade agreements like the USMCA. While countries like China capitalised on state coordination and strict supply chain control to build massive domestic EV ecosystems, Mexico historically lagged in capturing high-value-add automotive IP.

To bridge this gap, SECIHTI orchestrated an intensive 18-month engineering phase, uniting academic and public research powerhouses – including the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), Tecnológico Nacional de México (TecNM), UNAM and UPAEP.

The brand's debut model, the Olinia Uno, targets urban utility and aggressive affordability, aiming for a market segment largely overlooked by global legacy automakers.

The Olinia Uno is expected to cost approximately MXN 150,000 or USD 8,600 (INR 716,466), comes with a 14.7 kWh battery, with a claimed range of approximately 125 km per charge and a top speed of 50 kmph. The EV is expected to offer a low running cost of around MXN 0.5 or INR 2.74 per km.

In terms of features, the EV comes with a 7-inch centre display, Bluetooth 5.0, USB/USB-C ports, 6-passenger capacity and wheelchair accessibility.

Operating under a mixed-ownership corporate structure, the Olinia project is currently seeking MXN 200 million (USD 11.4 million) in private capital to transition from prototype to commercial manufacturing. Facility construction in Puebla is scheduled to begin between August and September 2026.

The plant is expected to debut with an initial capacity of 20,000 units per year, aiming to scale to 50,000 units within four years and eventually peak at 100,000 units annually. Olinia will launch with 50 percent localisation, with a mandate to hit 75 percent localisation by 2030.

The project is led by Director Roberto Capuano Tripp, with the initial phase involves deploying 2,000 charging points across Mexico City, the State of Mexico and Puebla to support the mass transition of public transport and taxi fleets.

To accommodate the rollout, federal authorities are collaborating with the Ministry of Economy to draft a new regulatory framework specifically governing low- and medium-speed urban vehicles. Furthermore, the vehicle's battery design incorporates a circular-economy strategy: power cells will be repurposed for residential energy storage before undergoing final chemical recycling at processing facilities in Sonora.

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