The electric vehicle (EV) maker is evaluating markets, including Africa, Australia, Singapore and the UK, but will move only after finding the right partners.
“We need a right partner who will do life cycle, maintenance of the vehicle, parts and training of people, which will be with us for the long term. It’s because we don’t want to just dump the products in the country and then land up in trouble,” Babu said.
Olectra was developing a new-generation platform for buses and trucks to support this overseas push, he added.
Unlike its first-generation vehicles, which were designed for India, the new platform will be export-ready. It would have configurations for markets using either left-hand or right-hand drive. It was also being designed to meet European regulations.
“We have learnt a lot in India. These new generation buses will address different modularity for different applications and it will also have different sizes of batteries. It will have a left-hand drive and right-hand drive to address export potential,” Babu said.
He added that Olectra will not rush its overseas expansion. Its aim is to build a sustainable overseas business rather than simply ship vehicles without support.
Beyond buses, Olectra expects electric trucks to become a larger opportunity over time. Babu said buses would remain the company’s main volume driver for the next five years, but electric truck sales could match or exceed bus sales over the following five years.
Olectra plans six truck launches, one every quarter from Q4 in FY27. “The bigger opportunity, more than buses, is in trucks,” he said, adding that a truck in India, on an average, runs over 300 kilometres per day, which is much higher than average 200 km that a bus runs for.
The expectation of a higher growth in electric trucks was also based on the size of India’s commercial vehicle market. Babu estimated FY27’s medium and heavy commercial vehicle volumes at 355,000 trucks, compared with about 130,000 buses.
Olectra delivered about 1,280 buses in FY26 and 350 in Q1 FY27. It is targeting at least 2,500 bus deliveries in FY27. Babu expected deliveries to accelerate, with an exit rate of 600-700 vehicles in Q4. Olectra currently has an order book of around 8,000 buses.
Babu said production is being matched with the readiness of depots and charging infrastructure rather than simply the size of the order book. A depot typically needs about 80 buses, 20-25 chargers, electricity infrastructure and trained drivers and maintenance staff before vehicles can begin operations.
“Today, we are one of the most efficient bus manufacturers where, after finishing my manufacturing, the vehicle is in revenue recognition mode within 15-30 days. That means it is in operation,” he noted.
Olectra can produce about 2,000-2,500 buses in a single shift at its 150-acre Seetharampur facility in Telangana and about 5,000 in two shifts. It plans annual capacity of about 10,000 buses and trucks over the next three to five years.
More than 70 per cent of the new-generation buses and trucks will be localised by value, excluding battery cells. Olectra plans one new bus variant every quarter from Q3/Q4, alongside the truck launches, all based on the new platform.
