Ex-Tesla Engineer To Produce India's First Electric Sports Bike 'Prana' With Up To 250 Km Range

While the electric vehicle revolution in India has only just started out, Indian minds have been involved in shaping the EV future across the world since long. Tesla, the US auto maker credited to boosting EV culture in various countries, is also accustomed to this. One such Indian engineer who worked there, now aims big back in India with a new (and his own) startup named Srivaru Motors. The goal? To produce the country¡¯s first ever electric sports bike.

A Coimbatore-based firm, Srivaru Motors recently revealed its plans to launch such a performance bike by the festive season. Mohanraj Ramasamy is the brains behind this. Having an experience of working for Tesla, the engineer now plans of his own EV business in India.

As for the motorcycle being promised here, the company has named it Prana and is gunning for an electric equivalent of a 300cc petrol engine motorcycle. The trademark has already been registered and interestingly, even several of the performance figures of the bikes have been floated out already.

These mention a 35 Nm peak torque, a top speed of over 100 kmph and a range of up to 250 km for the top variant. The electric bike will weigh 160 kgs and will be able to reach 0 to 60 kmph in less than four seconds as claimed by the company.

As for its variants, the electric bike will come in three options - Class, Grand and Elite spanning across range figures of 126 km to 250 km from the first to last. All of these will offer four riding modes, including a reverse mode.

Mohanraj Ramasamy (Representative Image)

Also read: Mahindra Reveals Six New Electric Car Lineup, Will Launch One Every Year From 2019

Interestingly, Mohanraj also claimed that the Prana will come with ¡°self-healing¡± capability. Judging from the earlier instances on electric vehicles, this would mean that the electric bike will be able to self-diagnose and correct minor issues by itself, mostly software related.

The roadmap

At the least, the company has ambitious plans for the vehicle. Designed and developed at the company¡¯s Coimbatore campus, Srivaru Motors plans to produce up to 30,000 units of the Prana annually within the facility. It also decides to scale up the production to 2,00,000 units within 18 months, for which it will outsource the production.

To enable this, the company has been able to procure strategic investments by some serial entrepreneurs, as per a report by Autocar India. Once the units are produced, Srivaru Motors plans to sell them through 25 retail outlets mostly spread in South India.

The price of the electric sports bike has not been hinted at yet. Though the company does claim to launch it at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) in the 300cc segment. As and when it does, it will mark the start of a new segment in the Indian two-wheeler industry altogether, provided it is launched before the Ultraviolette EV, another electric sports bike in the making for the Indian market.