Also, just thinking about it now, it helps mitigate risk due to fluctuating demand because the cost to own and operate the vehicle scales down more at light usage.
So there is a benefit in converting fixed upfront capital costs into rolling operational costs.
In most developed countries consumers can convert those upfront costs easily and cheaply through loans. In a country like India, loans are much more expensive.
Think of it like using cloud services instead of buying an upfront machine.
See https://tradingeconomics.com/india/real-interest-rate-percen... for real (ie inflation adjusted) interest rates in India.
They seem to be above 5% per year. That's high compared to the rest of the world. (Though I wouldn't say extremely high.)
[0]: https://www.ing.nl/particulier/lenen/jouw-leendoel/autolenin...
It's probably some kind of institutional lending, which tends to be much lower.
Trading Economic say they took the data from the World Bank.
See https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FR.INR.RINR?locations=I... for a comparison of real interest rates between the Netherland and India accordind to the World Bank.
The Word Bank gives a bit of background:
> Statistical Concept and Methodology: Many interest rates coexist in an economy, reflecting competitive conditions, the terms governing loans and deposits, and differences in the position and status of creditors and debtors. In some economies interest rates are set by regulation or administrative fiat. In economies with imperfect markets, or where reported nominal rates are not indicative of effective rates, it may be difficult to obtain data on interest rates that reflect actual market transactions. Deposit and lending rates are collected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as representative interest rates offered by banks to resident customers. The terms and conditions attached to these rates differ by country, however, limiting their comparability. Real interest rates are calculated by adjusting nominal rates by an estimate of the inflation rate in the economy. A negative real interest rate indicates a loss in the purchasing power of the principal. The real interest rates are calculated as (i - P) / (1 + P), where i is the nominal lending interest rate and P is the inflation rate (as measured by the GDP deflator). In 2009 the IMF began publishing a new presentation of monetary statistics for countries that report data in accordance with its Monetary Financial Statistical Manual 2000. The presentation for countries that report data in accordance with its International Financial Statistics (IFS) remains the same.