New Delhi: As the electric play in the commercial vehicle (CV) industry is gaining momentum, a duo of Gurugarm-based engineers is building Planet Electric, a startup which is manufacturing four-wheeled cargo electric vehicles (EVs), but with a cost effective solution relying on lightweighting technology with composite materials for its chassis, body and the cargo box.
A brainchild of Gagan Agrawal (33) and Prakhar Agarwal (35), the company was incorporated in 2021 to take on the conventional players including Tata Ace, Mahindra Bada Dost, amongst others in the segment. While the startup still has a long way to go before it turns its dreams into reality, the innovation in materials engineering for lightweighting of EVs cannot be ignored.
“We knew that composite materials are already in use in aviation and aerospace because aluminium fuselages were replaced by composite fuselages and fuel efficiency had gone up by 25%. We also knew that cooling towers and multiple other things were being built, except motor vehicles,” Gagan Agrawal, Co-Founder & CEO, Planet Electric, told ETAuto.
After completing his B.Tech degree, Gagan got into Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as part of a scholarship. While he worked there for just 3 years, his entrepreneurial brain had big plans. Prakhar, now Co-Founder & CTO of the company, worked with ISRO for a decade, specifically in building rocket and spacecraft structures with composite materials.
Both the aerospace engineers gained confidence in composite materials when they were working for a sounding rocket project during their college days. However, they realized in time that aerospace processes could not be applied on motor vehicles without them being pricey.
“We understood that Aerospace has a typical procurement profile. It asks for 5- 10 parts with extremely low defect built at typically around 25% structural margin as compared to what is needed in the flight. Motor vehicle systems are typically built in 100s of 1000s and you can accept certain amounts of defects on a six sigma criteria. And they are built at about 300%- 400% margin. So it will require a different class of materials,” Gagan noted.
For these processes to work in Indian conditions, it was required of them to be affordable and lightweight. The startup said it took a year and finally found a common ground by looking at processes like compression moulding, thermoforming, and pultrusion.
Working on the e-LCV project for three years now, the startup is set to showcase its Foak lightweight chassis made with high strength composite materials this month. The company claims that the new chassis is 67% lighter than the competition and will allow for up to 50% battery capacity reduction leading to superior cost economics.
Lightweight technology has been a crucial concept even for the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. It focuses on reducing the vehicle mass to improve its energy efficiency. The concept becomes even more critical for EVs where large battery packs tend to make the vehicles bulkier. Thus necessitating the use of lightweight materials in other components of the vehicle could play a significant role in addressing the concerns around efficiency and range anxiety.
Market entry by November
The company’s first prototype of the electric light commercial vehicle (e-LCV) will be out in April this year. The homologation process is slated to begin in June, and complete by September. Post this, Planet Electric is planning to launch its maiden vehicle by October-end or November, during the festive season in the country.
The vehicle is built on a 320V architecture platform. It involves 92V system, 21.4 kWh battery pack, 27 kW motor, rated payload of 600 kg, and the certification range of 154 km. It will come with two options for battery packs, another one being 15kWh with 165 km certification range and 750 kg rated payload. The e-LCV also gets an AC cabin, a screen and weight sensors in the cargo box.
While the total cost of acquisition (TCO) was a big factor in play, Gagan is still cautious of it as “because of the added cost of new materials, we will have to take a hit of about INR 70,000 on the product in the short term, which will pay off well in the long term”.
Road Ahead
Aiming to sell 1,500 vehicles by March 2025, Planet Electric is looking to generate an annual revenue of USD 20 million to 30 million. The vehicles could be priced from INR 9 lakh, going up to INR 10.5 lakh.
Six months ago, the startup raised USD 250,000 in its pre-seed round. In the next three months, the company is looking to raise USD 13 million which will largely be spent in building the production facility and the go-to-market strategy. For the production facility, the EV maker has finalized a rented space in Manesar.
“Once the funding round is complete, we should be able to start the production by July. It will push us to bring up a production facility with a capacity of 4,000 units per annum and get us access to other markets,” Gagan said.
Planet Electric aims to make its foray in exports markets including the Middle East, Indonesia, East Africa. It is also in talks with a few players in Dubai and Saudi Arabia for putting up a manufacturing facility as “export units will most likely be manufactured outside India because the scope of domestic market itself is quite large here”.
