New Delhi: The emerging electric mobility phase has begun though electric bikes have been a little late to enter the electrification trend. Here is one startup, Raptee waiting in the wings to enter the e-bike market. Raptee has its plan to change the whole e-bike market and create a disruption in the 2W segment initiating with launching its first bike by the end of 2023 or by early 2024.
The startup owner if not a two-wheeler manufacturer then he would have been a part of the world’s top car manufacturer company Tesla, as an engineer. Raptee is a startup founded by Dinesh Arjun, who is a business developer, fundraiser, and co-founder of the company. He has been interested in two-wheelers for a long time as he owns Royal Enfield’s dealership and he runs 3 outlets of it.
Raptee’s first product will be a mid-premium motorcycle variant running on 200 cc with a top speed of 135 km with NMC, the high voltage battery, at an estimated range of INR 2.5 lakh. “So a tourer sort of vehicle will be our first vehicle. Then we’ll move on to a slightly more sporty and then an advanced vehicle in the first platform,” Dinesh Arjun said.
When Tesla’s electric vehicles moved to high voltage powertrain there was a shift in the PV market across the world towards high-voltage vehicles. A similar shift is what Raptee aims for in the electric bike section.
Sales of electric two-wheelers have always been dominating in EVs; it has been one of the first auto sections to adopt electrification in India. In a report by Evrepoter where the Top 10 electric 2W (as per sales) were mentioned, only one pure e-bike brand called Revolt Intellicorp was there at the 7th position. It has sold 13,822 units in the FY23 thus holding only 2% of the market share, while it sold 9,197 units with a 3% market share in FY22.
Thus, providing an opportunity for Raptee to create a monopoly as they are providing potential customers with all the solutions for major setbacks which prohibits them from buying an electric bike. Another factor is the limited competition in the market currently. However, it can be a huge risk to initiate in a niche that is already small.
Where electric vehicles have a limitation of reliability and consistency when driving at maximum power and speed, Raptee aims to resolve it by bringing in a consistent bike even at the highest speed.
EV charging has always been an issue in India, as we have already talked about the limitations of EV’s infrastructure in our article on— Is India’s infrastructure ready to be electrified?
Thus owning a bike with a short battery life can be a prohibitive factor for the potential buyers, Raptee claims to bring bikes with the longest battery life in the market, with 8.5 years of NMC battery life guarantee which can even last up to 12-13 years.
Another limitation for the niche electric motorcycle market is the restrictive charging standard in vehicles. Many vehicles can be charged only from a particular charger mostly the brand of the vehicle thus limiting their options. The bike will have a common charging standard or CCS, the battery of e-bikes can be charged from any external charger available.
Talking about the regular maintenance requirement of e-bikes, Dinesh said this problem won’t be there as the bike needs maintenance after every two years or after every 40,000 km. The bike will have a longer and higher driving powertrain, which makes it tour- friendly.
With its own R&D and manufacturing unit in Chennai, with a capacity of 1.8 Lakh units Raptee aims to produce 10,000 units in the beginning for its buyers.
The real competitors for the company are the petroleum bike manufacturers, said Dinesh Arjun, while talking about the transition from petrol bikes to EV bikes. “I think I’m a firm believer that electric vehicles, just like how we moved from steam engines to petroleum, this is an upgrade”, said Dinesh. He also talked about the lower cost and maintenance expenses of their bikes when compared to conventional ones. The bike’s estimated price point ranges from INR 2 lakh to 2.5 lakhs.
ETAuto has discussed about Raptee’s fundraising of amount USD 3 million in its article, E-motorcycle startup Raptee raises USD 3 m in Pre-Series A round led by Bluehill capital. Fundraising round was led in a Pre Series A round led by Bluehill Capital in late September. We also talked about how the company has received a grant from ARAI (Automotive Reseach Association of India), the certifying authority for automobiles in India, towards the design and development of the high voltage powertrain.
From the motor controller, battery management system, and vehicle control unit to the operating system everything is in-house. The bike offers a personalized version for its users, with its (Raptee’s) own OS based on Linux, which is a great option for automotive Android according to them. The bike has an engine that performs a ton of analytics at the edge of the vehicle level. To improve the connectivity of bikes the company has partnered with coaching-based start-up GNSS and LTE.
Raptee’s aim is to be a premium vehicle brand with a D2C (direct-to-consume) approach. “ First six outlets will be dominantly in the first year of operations starting with Chennai, Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Pune and I think Kochi and Hyderabad. The first six will be company owned, company operating”, said Dinesh.
For a startup like Raptee which aims to be a leading electric bike manufacturer by the end of 2030 has some thorns on its way with competitors like Revolt, Ultraviolette, and Tork Motors. The leading player of e-bike market, Revolt Motorcycle has already set the bar high by being India’s 1st bike to have AI technology. Ultraviolette has recently made its entry into record books with F77’s record breaking ride.
On the other hand, as ETAuto reported in its article on- With FAME subsidy slashed, Tork Motors lowered the price barrier with the new model that Tork Motors by the end of this fiscal year is going to launch its two variants targeting a larger customer set as one is an entry-level variant and the other is premium level.
Another exclusive news that ETAuto made was the announcement that Ather Energy, one of the leading electric scooter manufacturers, has anticipated to launch its electric motorbike by the end of 2027. (Read more at:Ather Energy scripts new moves in the e-scooter space, Preps for electric motorcycle ride in the ‘background’.)
Thus, for a start-up founded by an ex-Tesla member can be strewn with obstacles, however, it would be interesting to know how Raptee can make its mark in the electric motorcycle market.
