How Sourav Joshi made his Merc. YouTuber's rags-to-crorepati story not fuelled by E20

Some 10 years ago, as a teenager, Sourav Joshi would accompany his father, a POP plasterer, to work at kothis and commercial buildings in Hansi, Haryana (then part of Hisar district). During school holidays, while helping his father, he watched luxury cars roll into driveways lined with manicured lawns. It all seemed a world away from his own. Today, he pulls into a home with the kind of driveway he once watched luxury cars enter. On a G-Wagon, or a Porsche, or maybe a Mercedes-Benz, or a Mahindra Thar, if he has just returned from an off-road trip in Amritpur, just 15 km from Uttarakhand's Haldwani, where he's based.

India's most popular vlogger is followed by more than 4.1 crore people on his YouTube channel. And that's just his main channel.

Today, Joshi lives with his family in a multi-storey bungalow, driving straight into a basement that's dedicated to his fleet of cars. But the Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 4MATIC (petrol) has lately become a source of concern for the artist-vlogger. He claimed that his Mercedes-Benz car was guzzling petrol and returning much lower mileage "because of E20-blended petrol". He added that he was now wondering if his "car would break down", adding that he was "scared of refilling petrol".

But unlike his Mercedes-Benz, priced at over Rs 80 lakh, Joshi's ascent to the pinnacle was not fuelled by E20. It was driven by his hard work, persistence and his ability to turn everyday life into compelling content. And, of course, his cousin, Piyush, whom the internet jokingly calls "the algorithm".

17 TO 9 TO 5: YOUTUBER SOURAV JOSHI SLAMS E20 FOR MILEAGE DROP

Amid the debate on the Centre's rushed effort to blend the E20 with petrol, Saurav Joshi raised concerns over the performance of his luxury vehicle. He attributed a drastic drop in fuel efficiency to the use of ethanol-blended petrol. In a daily vlog he uploaded on YouTube on Sunday, titled "Race With Brothers. Kon Jeetega?", Joshi voiced his frustration, along with his wife Avantika Bhatt. He showed the dashboard metrics inside his Mercedes-Benz luxury SUV, and claimed that his vehicle's efficiency plummeted to an unprecedented low within a span of just 48 hours. The video, The video, which has since garnered 4.3 crore views, has been trimmed, with the part where concerns are raised over E20-blended petrol, now missing.

A day after the video was trimmed, Joshi took to X, and said, "We visited the Mercedes service centre, and they found that there was an issue with the engine, which was causing low mileage. I apologise for the misunderstanding regarding E20 petrol. My intention was never to spread incorrect information or hurt anyone's sentiments. I have trimmed that part accordingly," he wrote on X on Monday.

However, a day before, he had an entirely different stand on what E20 fuel did to his vehicle.

"Yesterday, I showed you our car's mileage had gone from 17 straight down to nine," Joshi said. "And do you know what it has become today? Today it has reached five. Look at this, it's showing a mileage of five," he added.

But it was not clear whether Joshi was referring to the long-term fuel average or the real-time mileage display. These can fluctuate significantly depending on driving conditions, terrain, traffic and the vehicle remaining idle. Mercedes-Benz claims an ARAI-certified fuel efficiency of around 15 kmpl for the petrol-powered GLC 300 4MATIC.

Joshi pointed the blame towards the fuel available at local filling stations in Haldwani, where he now lives with his entire family.

"This is what has happened because of ethanol," Joshi asserted. His co-vlogger and wife, Avantika Bhatt, added, "We spent so much money on this car." The vehicle is priced at over Rs 80 lakh in India.

"It is a Mercedes after all. I'll have to send it to Delhi if a problem arises... Not only is petrol expensive, but if it breaks down, the repair costs are huge," he said.

The portion of the vlog has since been trimmed, but not before it went viral across social media. Some mocked Joshi, saying someone who could afford a Mercedes-Benz shouldn't be complaining about petrol bills. Others contrasted his modest beginnings with his current wealth. A section of users also suggested that by highlighting the E20 issue, the YouTuber was trying to strike a chord with India's middle class viewers, since he now presumably belonged to the upper class.

Apart from the Mercedes-Benz GLC, Joshi owns a Mercedes-Benz G-Class (G-Wagon), a Porsche, a Toyota Fortuner, a Mahindra Thar and an Innova Hycross. The fame and money he earned are a result of daily uploads rather than overnight luck. And, years before E20 entered the tank, Sourav Joshi had already fuelled something else. India's biggest family vlogging empire.

STARTED WITH SKETCHING, RECORDING, POSTING. IT TOOK YEARS FOR SOURAV JOSHI TO HIT JACKPOT

Born in Uttarakhand's Almora district, Sourav Joshi grew up in a financially struggling household which was far from privileged and where aspirations were larger than means. His family, native to Uttarakhand, had to migrate to Hansi in Haryana, where his father worked as a daily-wage POP plasterer.

While his mother managed the home, the family lived a life that would later be streamed in his videos. In the meantime, Sourav's younger brother Sahil (the quiet one), too, got a YouTube channel. Meanwhile, his paternal grandparents, and uncle and aunt (along with children Piyush and Kunal), stayed back in their ancestral village in Almora.

Unlike several-modern day influencers who build aspirational lifestyles first and audiences later, Joshi did the opposite. People watched him before they watched him prosper. However, Sourav Joshi's first love wasn't vlogging. It was drawing. Check out the channel "Sourav Joshi Art". All of this happened in the BC era — Before Covid.

In fact, before Sourav Joshi Vlogs, the channel, became a runaway success during the Covid lockdown, Joshi said he had already launched at least half a dozen YouTube channels, failing repeatedly before finally cracking the algorithm.

Before becoming India's biggest vlogger, Sourav uploaded sketching tutorials and portrait drawings on YouTube. Joshi once recalled that he would balance a Lava mobile phone on whatever he could find, record time-lapse videos of his drawings, and later upload them to YouTube. The art channel earned him a modest following but not financial freedom. That changed after he launched Sourav Joshi Vlogs in 2019, which his daily vlogs started picking up.

During the lockdown, he challenged himself to publish vlogs for 10 days without fail. The camera stayed on as his mother scolded Piyush and he burst into tears. He posted one on the 11th. He didn't stop on the 100th day. Not even on the 1000th day. He was and still is consistent. The audience got a chance to peek into a family. The family with four boys was an instant hit.

It was during the family's years in Hansi that Sourav's cousin, Piyush, then around seven or eight, came to live with them. The Haryana town arguably had schools better than those available in their native village in Uttarakhand's Almora district. It was also said that Sourav and his younger brother Sahil would help him with his studies. School children started "liking" Piyush's badmashiyaan.

KIDS WON'T EAT WITHOUT WATCHING SOURAV JOSHI VLOGS. HOW COVID PANDEMIC MADE HIM GROW

Then came the Covid-19 pandemic in India. The Joshi family, along with Piyush, were locked in. Soon, India entered its first nationwide lockdown in March 2020. Schools shut and millions of children were confined to their homes with little more than a mobile phone for company. Some kids remained hooked to the phone to study or on the pretext of it.

That accidental convergence of circumstance and relentless consistency worked in Joshi's favour. Viewers connected with the responsible elder brother trying to make it big, the mischievous Piyush, whose antics became the channel's heartbeat, and Sahil's acrobatic flips and energy that he showcased in his "Sahil Joshi Vlogs". The audience kept growing, so did Sourav Joshi Vlogs, and so did the Joshi family.

Many stumbled upon Joshi's simple, family-centric vlogs. They stayed.

As Covid restrictions began to ease, the Joshis returned to Uttarakhand. After years of living away from their native state for work and survival, the family moved to Haldwani, one of the few major cities in the plains of Uttarakhand. Sourav has said multiple times that his dream was to return to his Devbhoomi and live together with his family under one roof. Better earnings from YouTube have made that possible.

By then, the subscriber count had started to climb by a million. Cakes were cut every other month in a family full of vlogger-sons. Just how big Sourav Joshi had become was seen every time he stepped outside. Children would surround him for selfies, while parents narrated how his videos had become part of their households. "He wakes up and watches your vlog every morning," parents would say. Their child refused to eat without watching a Sourav Joshi vlog, others said. Even on family trips to places like Nainital, crowds would gather within minutes of spotting the YouTuber and his now-famous cousin, Piyush.

After coming to Haldwani, they first moved into a rented bungalow before eventually buying a plot in the same society. The multi-storey house the Joshis built on the plot is now their home.

As the new house came up brick by brick, the garage filled up car by car. First came better gadgets, then family holidays, luxury cars, new friends, and, inevitably, a few foes too. He dealt with them. We don't and shouldn't be knowing how. Carryminati even roasted him. But, YouTube's Silver, Gold and later Diamond Play Buttons found space on the walls. Brand endorsements and music videos added new revenue streams beyond daily vlogging.

"Notorious Piyush" became a streamer-gamer, while his younger brother Kunal (or Kunali as he's fondly called) took care of the badmashi.

JOSHI FAMILY'S UTTARAKHAND HOMECOMING; CM DHAMI ATTENDS WEDDING RECEPTION

As the channels grew, the family progressed. Piyush and his younger brother Kunal enrolled at Haldwani's Delhi Public School. Sourav picked up creator awards. Travelled across India. Collected awards and accolades. He went abroad for advertisement shoots, and became one of the country's most sought-after digital influencers. He's frequently seen visiting schools, sponsoring educational materials for students. Sourav also collaborated with some of India's most successful and loved celebrities and influencers like Sunil Grover, Kapil Sharma, Sonu Sood, MR INDIAN HACKER (Dilraj Singh Rawat), Triggered Insaan (Nischay Malhan), Flying Beast (Gaurav Taneja).

The family that had once counted every rupee was now ticking off dreams one after another. They went to Kapil Sharma's show as well. Sourav took his parents on vacations they had never imagined. His first flight, the foreign trips, soon followed. His uncle, aunt and grandparents moved from their village to Haldwani. The extended family came together once again, as Sourav had hoped.

For Sourav, personal milestones followed too. In November 2025, Sourav married Avantika Bhatt in a private ceremony at a resort in Rishikesh. Days later, the reception drew several prominent guests, including Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Despite the fame and fortune, the family has largely held on to the simple, grounded life they believe is enough.

Today, Sourav Joshi Vlogs is among India's biggest YouTube channels, with over 4.1 crore subscribers and tens of billions of cumulative views across platforms. Avantika Bhatt, into "fashion, lifestyle and beauty" has 42 posts and 1.3M followers on Instagram.

When someone with that kind of reach comments on a politically and economically charged issue, a storm is almost inevitable. Social media split into camps. As it suited, some defended him. Others mocked him. Informed ones dissected him. Questions, some valid and some not, were hurled. The debate grew so big. Mercedes-Benz India issued an official clarification. Mileage of the controversy picked up. Joshi trimmed the viral portion of the vlog and "apologised for the misunderstanding regarding E20 petrol", that one gentleman on X said was Joshi's "reverse gear".

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