Kick-starting a new two-wheeler race

Kapil Shelke earned his stripes by working in the pits with electric superbikes in China and Europe. Now he’s turning his hands-on experience to launching the Tork T6X electric bike that’s due to come racing onto the roads within a few months.

“On Day Zero, there’ll be a small market for early adopters. We have to deliver a bike that’s reliable and fun to ride,” he says. Shelke’s Tork Motors and its team of 15 engineers have already caught eyes of investors like Bharat Forge, which brings with it huge automotive industry experience and others such as cab aggregator Ola’s founders.

At a different level, Jeetender Sharma brings his vast two-wheeler industry knowledge to his start-up Okinawa Scooters. He was with Honda Motors for 15 years and was part of the company’s launch team. Before that, he’d also worked at a one-time two-wheeler giant LML. Okinawa has two electric models, the Ridge and the Praise, and already has 7,500 vehicles on the road.

Sharma’s looking to launch an electric motorcycle in the near future and says: “I want to deliver both segments to the customer.” Okinawa can rapidly scale up and produce 90,000 scooters and bikes a year. “India is going to be a big market,” Sharma asserts.

Powering on tech

‘The attack of the minnows,’ is how one British magazine described the phenomenon of tiny start-ups using the power of new technology to take on giant, established corporations. India’s two-wheeler industry is dominated by entrenched homegrown stars like Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS and also global colossus Honda Motors. But that isn’t stalling a clutch of electric two-wheeler start-ups like Tork, Okinawa and Bangalore-based Ather Energy which has been backed by Hero MotoCorp and which is now valued at roughly ₹1,000 crore.

There are also other players like Emflux and Twenty Two Motors which displayed its Flow electric scooter at the recent Auto Show and Bangalore-based NDS Eco Motors which has one scooter on the road and is aiming to soon launch two more. Early movers in the electric vehicle game include companies such as Lohia Auto which is launching a scooter later this year and Coimbatore-based Ampere Vehicles which makes a mix of electric bicycles, three-wheelers and scooters.

The leader of the electric two-wheeler pack doesn’t qualify as a minnow. But it’s still a challenger in a market controlled by giants. Hero Electric, (it’s chairman is Naveen Munjal, from a different branch of the Munjal family) made an early move into electric mobility and has seven models on the road.

“Everybody knew electric was the future even if it was the distant future. Now it’s the present,” says Sohinder Gill, Hero Electric’s chief executive and director of the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles. Hero Electric has produced a large number of the 460,000 electric two-wheelers on the roads and is now looking at investing up to ₹500 crore in coming years.

The e-future

What explains the rush of tiny companies revving up to take their place on the highway? The fact is electric vehicles (EVs) are very different beasts from the internal combustion creations on our roads for the last century. Most importantly, EVs have fewer moving parts and need only a handful of suppliers unlike internal combustion vehicles that need an army of component manufacturers. “In place of an engine, you’ve an electric motor like a fan, the transmission, gearbox are eliminated,” explains an auto industry expert. “You just need five or six suppliers and don’t need a large organisation. A small-scale company can easily do the job.”

Fewer parts, of course, also means maintenance is an entirely different game for EVs. Praveen Kharb of Twenty Two Motors notes their smart vehicles will be ‘connected’ and so the company will be able to constantly monitor the vehicle and know when a part needs changing.

“Service will know what’s bad and why it’s bad,” he says, adding service will be at the customer’s doorstep. Other companies offer similar high service standards. But that’s relatively easy to do as EVs are relatively maintenance-free, manufacturers note.

Easier maintenance is, of course, one of EVs’ giant plus points. The big issues that have been roadblocks for EVs are speed and range. Speed has now been conquered with most scooters offering top speeds of 70kmph-80kmph. Says Shelke: “An electric bike should be as quick as a 100cc bike.”

Getting over the range hump is still EVs’ greatest barrier. Sharma says Okinawa’s Ridge scooter, which uses lead acid batteries, has a range of 80km-90km and the company’s newer lithium ion Praise can travel 170km-200km on a single charge.

MH Reddy says NDS Eco will offer an add-on battery on its newest scooter. Says Reddy: “Someone asked me, ‘If I want to go from Bengaluru to Mysore, how will I go?’” Sharma says his newer scooter can be fully revved up and ready to go in 40 minutes using a booster charger.

Other companies are coming up with different solutions for the range problem. Ather is looking at launching in three cities — Bangalore, Pune and Chennai — initially. In Bangalore, it’s considering putting up charging stations or points at distances of roughly every 4km at places like malls, cafes and gyms. The company’s scooter will also tell riders what range is left and where the next charging station is located. Twenty Two says its battery is portable and can be charged in any 5amp plug.

By contrast, Tork, which says its bikes have a greater range that’s more than enough for in-city driving, will watch the market and may put up charging stations on highways. And some companies like Okinawa say smaller towns where distances aren’t a big issue are seeing a quick sales pick-up.

Big and beyond

Where are the big companies in all this? Obviously, they’re not about to stand at the roadside and watch a bunch of small players whiz past. Hero MotoCorp has invested in Ather and is bringing out its own vehicles. Honda has EVs in its international range. And TVS launched an electric scooter at the recent Delhi Auto Show.

But it’s still mainly wait-and-watch for automotive companies. Some insist that EVs are too highly priced for the cost-sensitive market. Everyone agrees that IC vehicles will be around for a long time. Meantime, the smaller firms aren’t looking into the rearview mirror and worrying about the giants coming up behind them. In fact, they say the more the players, the quicker EV infrastructure will come up. And they believe they can take on the giants.

Says Reddy: “In IC engines, I’m nowhere. Electric mobility is a green-field. Anybody can start a project.” Adds Kharb confidently: “Here the starting line is common for the bigger and the smaller companies.” And the starter’s flag is definitely coming down on this new race.

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