Meet the techies who are building electric superbikes for Indian roads

The duo even built their own battery packs ground up, employing technologies one usually associates with applications in aerospace and consumer electronics

If all goes well, India will have its own high-performance electric motorcycles by the middle of 2021.

The groundwork for this was laid by two techies, Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan, some five years ago when the duo, then in their mid-20s, quit high paying jobs to achieve this dream. The intent was to come out with electric motorcycles that met the aspirations of Indian consumers, and could cater to the tough, extreme terrain and climatic conditions in the country. Thus, their start-up Ultraviolette Automotive was born in 2015.

The TVS Motor-backed firm in November last year had unveiled the pre-production version of its first superbike - F77, which since then has seen several improvements in key parameters after rigorous road tests. The connected electric motorcycle comes with remote diagnostics over-the-air (OTA) upgrades, regenerative braking, multiple ride modes, bike tracking, ride diagnostics and a whole lot of other features.

“Since the unveiling, we have received an overwhelming response from the market, especially from people in the age group of 22-30 years, and are working towards delivering our first batch of motorcycles by mid-2021,” said Subramaniam, co-founder and CEO of the firm. “There are a few other companies working on electric vehicles, but we are highly differentiated by technology and capabilities of our R&D team and have multiple vehicle platforms ready for production,” adds Subramaniam, a design engineer himself who also has won several international design competitions including the Move awards in Europe (2013), the Michelin Design Challenge (2011) and the All India Automobile Design Challenge by SIAM (2010) to name a few.

Subramaniam and Rajmohan have known each other since childhood though they pursued different career paths after their engineering, before reuniting. Subramaniam worked with some of the leading automotive companies in the world including Toyota Daihatsu in Japan, Volkswagen in Germany and Mahindra Automotive in India, while Rajmohan spent years with software majors such as Netapp and Yahoo Inc. “We were in constant touch with each other and often discussed how we could bring our experience and skills together not just in any venture, but in an area in which we could create a visible and tangible impact. And for us, the electric vehicle industry was one such where we believed we could build technologically disruptive solutions with unlimited potential for innovation,” added the founders.

When they launched the venture in 2015, the EV industry was largely untouched in India. They also knew they had to address the perception of “low performance and a zero desirability” associated with the electric vehicles.

While there was virtually no ecosystem for EVs in the country, the other challenge before them was the unavailability of batteries that could meet the demands of a high performance electric vehicle and sustain the rigours of climatic variances and usage across India. So they had to virtually build their own battery packs, ground up. They had to employ technologies that one usually finds getting applications in aerospace and consumer electronics. The helped them bring out several innovations in battery techn, especially on the safety and thermal management aspects for which the company has filed several patents. “What we have today, are battery packs that have the highest energy and power density globally,” adds Subramaniam.

In fact, in the early days, when the company was just a team of five employees, many wondered how a team so small is daring to achieve what larger companies with thousands of R&D engineers have not been able to. “Right from the start, our pace of innovation has been one of our biggest strengths. In a matter of few months, we were able to dispel these reservations and have built a lot of intellectual property through our innovations on the battery tech and vehicle design front.”

When F77, the first superbike of the Bengaluru-based EV firm hits the road next year, it will achieve several milestones. In fact, the pre-production version that was unveiled last year had already achieved many of those. The twin-battery powered bike provides a range of 130-150 km under standard driving conditions. It is capable of touching zero to 60 kmph speed in just 2.9 seconds and 0-100kmph in 7.5 seconds, thanks to the instant torque provided by the electric powertrain which delivers instant acceleration. The electric motorbike also comes with a power regeneration mode which means that each time the rider applies the break, it recharges the battery. This is particularly useful in urban traffic that often requires a lot of slow-rolling and stop-and-go riding.