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Purpose, Pivots & Building Altigreen's EV Dream | Dr. Amitabh Saran
333 Plays2 years ago
"What do you want to be remembered for?"
This was the pivotal question posed to Dr. Amitabh Saran during a corporate workshop at Hewlett-Packard that dramatically shifted his perspective on his career and life's work. It wasn't about being a good son or brother, but about tangible contributions to the planet. This profound moment of reflection eventually guided his impactful entrepreneurial journey towards founding Altigreen Propulsion Labs, a company aimed at solving India's critical transportation and environmental challenges.
Dr. Amitabh Saran is the Founder & CEO of Altigreen Propulsion Labs, an innovative Indian electric vehicle (EV) company that has successfully raised nearly $50 million in funding, with major backers including Reliance New Energy. Under his leadership, Altigreen has developed a significant patent portfolio with over 29 patents granted across more than 60 countries, focusing on creating EVs "Made in India, Made for India."
Key Insights from the Conversation:
- The "Epitaph" Moment: A simple question about one's legacy can be a powerful catalyst for re-evaluating your life's work and driving you towards more purposeful ventures.
- Solving for India, by India: Instead of merely replicating Western models, there's immense opportunity and need for building products and services tailored to India's unique challenges and environment.
- From Software to Hard Tech: The journey of an entrepreneur can take unexpected turns, leveraging foundational skills (like computer science) to tackle complex hardware and manufacturing challenges in new industries like EV.
- Pivoting with Vision: Knowing when to pivot a business—like moving from a content platform to being acquired, or from being a component supplier to a full-fledged OEM—is crucial for the long-term realization of a founder's vision.
Chapters:
- 00:00 Introduction to Altigreen and Its Focus
- 01:28 Amitab's Early Career and Inspirations
- 07:54 First Startup: Computer Telephony Software
- 10:10 Second Startup: Buzzing Town's Focus
- 21:57 The Pivotal Question About Contributions
- 27:50 Genesis of Altigreen and Motivations
- 31:57 Innovation and EV Technology Development
- 40:49 Product Development and Testing Phases
- 51:22 OEM Partnerships and Manufacturing Shift
- 01:11:53 Current Status and Future Expansion
Hashtags for YouTube:
#FounderThesis #AmitabhSaran #Altigreen #ElectricVehicles #EVIndia #StartupIndia #IndianEntrepreneur #MakeInIndia #TechStartup #Innovation #Sustainability #CleanEnergy #Entrepreneurship #StartupJourney #Leadership #ElectricMobility #Podcast #BusinessPodcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Amitabh Saran and His Ventures
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, everyone. This is Amitabh. I am the founder, CEO of Salty Green Propulsion Labs. We are an unique technology company based in Bangalore.
00:00:21
Speaker
Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. I am sure you would have heard of this wonderful phrase and this is most applicable for the sector of electric vehicles or EVs. After all, we are living in a world where the wealthiest man is the founder of an EV company, Tesla.
00:00:37
Speaker
In this episode of the Founder Thesis Podcast, your host Akshay Dutt talks to Dr.
Amitabh's Journey and Inspirations
00:00:42
Speaker
Amitabh Saran, the founder of Altegreen. Altegreen is an EV startup focused on the category of commercial three-wheeler vehicles, and it has raised almost $50 million till date with the Reliance Group as one of their major backers. Amitabh has an almost two-decade-long journey as a serial entrepreneur, and in this conversation, he shares his process of finding startup ideas and scaling them up.
00:01:06
Speaker
He also talks about the importance of building products in India that meet Indian needs instead of blindly copping the West. Listen on, and if you like such insightful conversations with disruptive startup founders, then do subscribe to the Founder Thesis Podcast on any audio streaming app.
00:01:29
Speaker
Born and brought up in Lucknow and did my schooling at Martin Air Lucknow. My dad was an IPS officer, so he did want me to join the government service. Definitely not the police, but perhaps an IPS officer. So what was your ambition? I think I have always been a tinkerer. I like to work with my hands.
00:01:47
Speaker
My dad was like that. He taught me everything to know about electricity, about plumbing, about fixing things. So for us, when I went to the U.S. for the first time, I realized that recycling was a big thing in the U.S. And then I was like, dude. I went wrong and brought up in that culture, right? Where everything is recycled including jam, bottles, jars. Second life, third life, fourth life of everything.
00:02:10
Speaker
How did you land up in the US? I did my research in computer science from REC Alabad, which is now NIT Alabad. It's become a National Institute of Technology. A part of that program, all the RECs converted to the Nikes. Did that, got an out-of-campus job at TCS? TCS must have been like a small startup at that time.
00:02:31
Speaker
So TCS would be surprised, actually TCS started in 1969. When I graduated in 1989, it was a formidable company by then, but the focus entirely was on sending people abroad. There were very little that TCS used to do in India, very, very little. It was clear that they used to take us through a lot of training and they used to make consultants out of engineers. So this is, I was still, I think 20 at that time when I joined TCS.
00:02:57
Speaker
So anyway, I did TCS for a bit and my manager in TCS, Mr. Lighten, for whatever reason, he thought I was a decent bloke. He happened to quit TCS and he joined the Philips in Singapore. And I was having my dinner and he calls up and he says, Hey, you want to work in Singapore?
00:03:14
Speaker
By then, yes. So anyway, so did the legal process that TCS joined Phillips in Singapore. They posted me in Thailand. There was a large project for ATMs. This is 1980 and 1990. And they were building the largest network of ATMs in Thailand. And I was posted for that project.
Academic Pursuits and Return to India
00:03:32
Speaker
I'm working there with fun fun time so i'm i think at some point i felt like i need to know more about computers and computer science just programming language in good enough right so that's when i decided to pursue a PhD i said that let's go the whole hog so i won't go there for a one year master that will try to dig deeper.
00:03:55
Speaker
I got this opportunity applied in a few places. Got a good record call from the University of California. Met a couple of people, got Santa Barbara campus. They were offering me, you know, not just the PhD in computer science, but also a project that they were willing to get to be in on that. So it was a good TA ship. And then you would get some stipend or some salary also.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. So it wasn't a teaching assistantship because teaching assistant, obviously it's a great thing. You're teaching kids, but I like teaching, but I think doing research was more my thing and they were willing to offer me a project for research because I, by then I had about three years, three and a half years of experience in working with large systems, even through TCS and then the Phillips and ATMs and all these were new technologies. Even in the U S at that time, it wasn't like something I'm talking about 1991. So.
00:04:42
Speaker
They have appreciated this in Nastigal, Surin Mill Jayagal, Threemay, who get to work. But at some point, the Deshvak rises in you, and you're like, no, I think I'll just do a job. And so I joined the Hewlett Packard in Cupertino. And with them, I moved back to India in 1998. So I was in the US from 1991, 1992, 1998.
00:05:11
Speaker
So it's very interesting and I always get pulled up when I'm telling the story to people, but this is a real story. I'm an HP and we are, when you're a geek there and you want to hacker those kind of things, you don't like attending these meetings, organizational development meetings and all that because it's like.
00:05:33
Speaker
This is our manager's up to work. This is one of those things where we'll get good lunch during these off-sites. I was attending this. I remember this presenter was someone who'd been to Machu Picchu and Caucasian Dai and he was doing his best to obviously keep our attention going. Final day, he gives us a piece of paper and everyone's like, now this guy is going to ask us.
00:05:58
Speaker
Anyway, he says, can I have your attention please? And everyone looks up and then he says, this piece of paper is going to be your epitaph. You guys are all dead. Whatever you write here will go on your tombstone. I want you to all start by writing here lies with your name and then mention, see again, I'm getting good ones again. What you want to be remembered for, very clear on the form.
00:06:19
Speaker
It should not be what you want to be remembered as. I don't want to hear about, you know, you were a good son or a good brother or a good, uh, you know, father. No, no, no, no. What were your contributions on this planet because of which people should remember you? What do you want to be remembered for? Dude, I kid you Northpan. I am getting good thumbs again. It's just incredible. That was the time you suddenly start thinking, well, what did you write in that slide?
00:06:45
Speaker
So I think everyone has grandiose opinions about themselves. From what I remember, I think I was just so overwhelmed by that thing that, yeah, what is the purpose, right? I think I wrote something around, I have a disdain for the authoring. It was more a description about myself than about the contribution that made, because when you really look into it, then you realize, yeah, I haven't looked. So what if I made a network and people are able to use their ATM cards or NASA scientists are able to do some computing. Everyone's working, man.
00:07:15
Speaker
I'm not like, did you make a difference in someone's life? So my parameters to that are a little different, I guess. So I think I might have left most of the paper blank from what I remember. It might have written a couple of lines, but it has made me think too much that, and I think that was one of the reasons why I decided to move back to India. I did have aspirations of being able to do something in the social sector.
00:07:40
Speaker
I will have to influence people in my sphere of contact. And perhaps that led me to get into startups. So in 2000, I had the opportunity of creating part of the founding theme of a startup, which was based out of Portland, Oregon, what the entire operation was in India.
00:07:59
Speaker
We were building software products for the US and Europe market. I'm talking about, I returned to India in 1998, when half of India was moving to the US for Y2K. But I'm back in India. And in those days, you could actually count product companies one hand. There was Tally. Product companies, very, very few. Infosys had Finicle. They were just building a Finicle. But everyone was working in the services industry. Many few known
Buzzintown's Rise and Acquisition
00:08:26
Speaker
product companies. We were one of the few product companies.
00:08:29
Speaker
Actually created so this was trivium what was the product of trivia we were into computer telephony so this was the time when you follow call center and a screen pops up and and click the oip that yeah so what is our ip computer telephony customer relationship management crm system so.
00:08:47
Speaker
it's like when you call one hundred number that guy picks up and says hello mr saran how are you how does he know that mr saran is falling those days everyone has landlines caller id is there and so the caller id so then what do you do with that information that mr saran has called so that's when we were working on integrating the base platform if it's computers if it's telecom industry the base platform along with the screen that says that you had last called us for this was a problem not solved
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, so I'm suddenly very happy that yes, I'm in good hands. Who are you? Exactly. Who are you? When did you last fall? I don't see that. So it was a lot more personal. You could talk to people, you know, they could make judgment calls and decisions on the phone. And they used to do that very effectively. That was nice.
00:09:42
Speaker
So we were building those kinds of systems and our customer base was all in the US and Europe and so we were doing a lot of.
00:09:49
Speaker
Did that for about seven, eight years. We were doing very, very good. I mean, we had acquired other companies. We had 8,000 customers in the US and Europe, so pretty large. At that point, I realized that seven, eight years, good enough. I was part of the founding team. At some point, you feel like you want to do something new. So that's when I started my next startup.
00:10:15
Speaker
It was in the consumer internet space. This was a company called Buzzintown. It grew to be present with coverage of 18 cities in India and 19 cities in US and Canada. So the main starting point of this company was
00:10:31
Speaker
You know, this is 2007, you asked someone, what is the default answer you get? It's like there is nothing else happening in your city, but go for a movie and then have lunch or dinner or whatever. And there's so much more channels of wholesome entertainment all around you. It's just that you don't have discovery is the largest problem there because not everyone is online.
00:10:57
Speaker
Again, I'm talking about 2007. I'm talking about India. I'm talking about 18 cities in India where we were targeting and we were saying, okay, we're going to be building a network which allows a lot of information on entertainment, lifestyle, and leisure options across this so that this is the 11 newspapers would publish events like concert happening here. Yes. And if you see the top newspapers in the country, you would find
00:11:27
Speaker
event listings from buzzandtown.com also because all of that was being so we were gathering it all together and we were supplying it for a lot of the afternoon editions and the morning editions. We were the ones who were supplying most of the internet. We had created small windows and they would embed these windows in various portals. We had three million subscribers and all kinds of things, very, very neat. What was the monetization for this? You wanted to
00:11:54
Speaker
before martin said how did you collect the information was it crowdsource like user generated yes so in those days this phenomenon of crowdsourcing was not there basically you have to have teams presence. A lot of phone calling to each of these when you.
00:12:11
Speaker
So you organize events so we used to organize around events we used to send people gather information about all the venues because if i know all the venues and i know what's happening at the venue right so i call center used to call up all these guys and yeah like in delhi you have india habitat centers.
00:12:28
Speaker
in the Habitat Centre, City Forward, and Kalyan Auditorium. In a larger city, there are about 50 good places. Obviously, there'll be moments of places over there. You can't get access to that, and that order 5 or 6 years later, we were able to create that also. But the idea also is that we need to get access to that, so go and get information about venues, and then call up those venues and say, what's happening? What's going on? And then list those. The monetization was obviously advertising.
00:12:56
Speaker
That was a common thing for a content-oriented platform. That day, we used to do a lot of ticket sales. So these events, then we started saying, oh, you have events. Do you want us to sell tickets for you? And they were like, oh, online, how does it work? What happens? You know, at that time, Book My Show had started in those days. So we used to work with them, which was just cinema hall focused. Exactly. And we were doing events. So it was very clear. The demarcation was very clear. We were like a combination, like a ticket master by anything.
00:13:23
Speaker
But then we said hey so it's clear that there are entertainment options but people also eat food. The reality is that a lot of our outings are all around food. Ultimately you will finally come down to a local studio restaurant.
00:13:38
Speaker
find out a lot more options other than the usual movie theater major on the food court. Are there other places, all in the world, that are very well known for specific things? So we started doing that. A lot of videos. We made a lot of audio and video content, which we also used to modify the restaurants. And then we started on getting coupons for meals.
00:13:58
Speaker
fairly decent monetization that was the time when also this started dealer day so there was this company right Groupon so the same model started coming in India where you used to say okay so yeah snap deal started like that snap deal and so this is the deal for the day and so we have a lot of subscribers and they are all interested on entertainment so I can give them a deal let's say they you know what you could get you know this meal for for so much if you buy so many coupons but
00:14:25
Speaker
We were the last in print and the first to exit in that space. Um, I think great about it, but we were, we had the pulse of entertainment as far as India's concerned and was clear that the restaurants and whoever was giving the deal was actually beating. So they used to give it, it wasn't that they were making 50 and 60 and 80% margin when no one is making that kind of margin anywhere in the world, but they were giving 80% off just so that customers would come in and taste the food. And hopefully they would like it so much that they would come keep coming back.
00:14:53
Speaker
have that lifetime value concept. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Any time you get a discount, you go to that. Everyone was just looking for deals. So that the pete visitor was not happening for these four guys. So it was a model that failed miserably. No one went public, but look at what happened. Even Zabato struggled with their gold program.
00:15:20
Speaker
Not all of them. All of them happened and unfortunately, they had completely changed their model to only that and hence, there was a lot more struggle in the case of Buzzard Town. This was one more thing that we were doing but that aside, we got acquired by Yatra.Form, made an offer. Yatra was trying to make their association with their customers a little more sticky. The idea is you buy a ticket.
00:15:46
Speaker
you have many options to buy an airline ticket. And once you bought the airline ticket, you don't think of Yatra. No, I don't think it's really a frequent use case. Correct. So is there a glue that you can have so that now Yatra knows that you're going to be in Delhi for X number of days, right? So can I tell you about what's happening in Delhi? Hopefully arrange a taxi for you, take you to the venue, you know, you're new in that city.
00:16:10
Speaker
when can you depend on your friends and it started doing that i think that was the. What is it a cash acquisition and stuff it was a combined thing i was a combined thing yeah as a software company and realize that to get funding for this is back again talking about two thousand was the first start of the second one was two thousand seven.
00:16:29
Speaker
Money is still not coming necessarily to these kinds of companies. Yes, there are very good examples of companies that were getting funded, e-commerce oriented. We were content play. We were different. There were a lot more companies and they're not even around at this point, but we were all in this fray together.
00:16:48
Speaker
it helped to have a U.S. headquarters because everyone used to. So then financing funding became a little easier. Did that acquisition happen? And I think after the acquisition, like you've been in B2B throughout and then suddenly you decide to open like a
00:17:05
Speaker
very hardcore business which would need a lot of money to do customer acquisition, which would need money to build the supply of content. What made you choose that? Why were you doing Byzantine? A practical problem.
00:17:21
Speaker
which I was facing. You've just exited a startup. You're coming out. So I, by the way, I had made three portals. So I am one of those guys who doesn't do one at a time. For me, everything is three. I strongly believe in the power of three. It's not like the guy who shows up fourth in an Olympic event is no good. No, no, no. But people have a problem of remembering anything beyond three. That is Buddha's threefold path.
00:17:47
Speaker
Team the number, you don't remember beyond three. Team is the only thing. I made a little team is very important. I do three. I made three portals and I went out to people and I tried to convince them. They were in three completely isolated domain. One was around salaries. I still believe that idea is a lot of merit.
00:18:05
Speaker
The other one was called Lighthouse. It was basically your neighborhood. It was hyper-local. And the idea was that there's a lot of information that's within your neighborhood. Who is the best carpenter, the driver in your neighborhood? Artful WhatsApp, Fisherville, yeah. But in those days, again, 2007, right? There's a lot of information. Who is a good neighbor? Should I, am I need to get my house painted? Who's ever painted? I mean, Asian paint, never lack, and all these. The recent things, the lot has changed in this country over the last seven, eight, nine, and years, right?
00:18:34
Speaker
Anyway, so that was the second portal. It was called Lighthouse. First one was around salary and the third one was around lifestyle, legal, and entertainment. I built all three. In 2007, I had three portals and then I went out and said, okay, guys, who's funding which one? Right?
00:18:48
Speaker
Everyone just came to entertainment, because entertainment is one that gets funded. It was like, that's how they look. Literally, I went to each of the investors. It was very clear. I will be doing only one. So again, focus. There's no indigestion here. There is no question about running three portals. Just one. Which one are you willing to fund?
00:19:11
Speaker
I'm very clear. These are three of my babies. I mean, they're in gestation stage, so I don't have a problem about taking them.
00:19:20
Speaker
And you say, okay, fine, let's do this. And they do invest and they gravitate towards entertainment. I'm fine. I didn't have a problem. So those two are out and entertainment it is. And to raise that down before logic, you got a scene drop. So I built these three portals on my own money. And then when you start operations, then I have certain counters that I need this much before I will start because that to me
00:19:49
Speaker
So I am one of those guys who kind of uses investors as good sounding boards. So I will handpick my investors who will add value because I do believe that entrepreneurs are driven and they land up making stupid decisions once in a while. So you need to have a good sounding board. And when a person gives you even a thousand rupees, right? He wants to make sure that they're used, forget about a million dollars coming in, but they want to make sure that you're doing the right as long as they are in it for the right reasons.
00:20:18
Speaker
If the reason is the friend will be able to make five times 10 times and all that, it doesn't happen at the seed state. At the seed state, all they're doing is yes, good person, good team. I think the problem is large enough. The opportunity is large enough. I think he will be able to get the next round. So let me make sure that you can find that. That is a very, very good investor who understands that I have to take him to the next round. What that round is, no one has created.
00:20:43
Speaker
But it's large, you know, your face is good enough, pretty enough that they say, okay, fine. So that's what I ended up doing. To me, B2B, B2C, these are all things that demarcations that happened a lot later. But to me, it was another problem that we were fixing. And we had to hire the right team, the right kind of people. And you can make wondrous things happen. I am very, very clear about this stuff.
00:21:06
Speaker
You know, the team, people, it's all about people. It's all about people. It's not about anything. You get the right set of people. That's all that matters. Why did you sell to Yatra? Was it that you did not see a path forward in terms of raising funds and all of that? Very good question. I think very few people have asked me this. So there comes a time when you realize that you started this with a mission.
00:21:35
Speaker
I think it's important somewhere, sometimes we, entrepreneurs have this issue that we either get too attached because there's always this thing, it's your baby, it's your baby, it's your baby. So you get, obviously you get attached to your creation. They forget that it's a business. You know, so all the decisions start to tend to be made more emotionally than it's a business house. You have to extricate yourself on it and make the right decision.
00:22:03
Speaker
So two things happened at that time. What is good for the business? What is good for the business? What is good for the translation of your vision with which you had started the company? I think that is very important. That's why you, why do you become an entrepreneur? Not because you want to make a quick buck and exit from there. I think if you're doing that, know that you're doing that and then focus and drive it towards that. There is no harm in doing.
00:22:31
Speaker
But know that. Don't start with a grandiose vision, but your ulterior motive is to make that million and run away. So mix the two because then you'll mess around. So if you start with a vision, right? And then you were saying that, okay, what is the best path to get to that vision?
00:22:48
Speaker
So if someone was acquiring you and then not being able to take you to a place where you would have wanted to be taken, right? Then you say that, yeah, maybe not the right thing to do. In our case, it was clear that e-commerce had started rising. This is 2011. e-commerce had started rising. We had two choices. We were a content portal, right? We are content. We have creative writers and we have creative teams and working on creating a good content and we have a good user base.
00:23:16
Speaker
We have two options. One is we also pivot ourselves to become an e-commerce company. So that was one. Or the other is we tie up with someone who is willing to take this forward, this mission of turning around. So I think we chose latter instead of pivoting to become an e-commerce company. And so in our case, we decided through that. I think
00:23:36
Speaker
I have been passionate always about automobiles. Like I said, I've seen all kinds of Jeeps and vehicles and all kinds of other things. I've been around with them. Again, I'm talking about those days when we had Fiat and ambassadors and you had to apply for a Fiat and seven years later you would be called and you had a license that looked like a reader's digest book.
00:23:58
Speaker
It was that cheap and good open and multiple and been through that era where it was like a talk of the town when you buy literally. So as part of an IPS service, you'll see all kinds of vans and all kinds of cars around. And so they've always fascinated engines, big engines, cars, all these are fascinated me. Environmental
00:24:19
Speaker
has always excited me. Perhaps after I had my own kids, it's something that I'm very, very conscious about. So both these have been passions. I think I had been waiting a lot for the hybrid vehicles to show up in India. This is, I'm talking about the COVID 910. I was very excited when Toyota announced that it is going to bring the Prius into India. Yes. I mean, largest selling, I've driven it in California. I have a few of them.
00:24:47
Speaker
Amazing wake, right? And you're like, finally, you know, India was introduced at a price point of 29 lakhs. At that price point, it's not going to make a dent in any shape, matter of format. I'm talking about that in 2011, 91% of India's electricity was coming from coal grids, 91%. But even then, I think 11 of the top 15 worst polluted cities of the world were in India. 11 of the top 20, yes.
00:25:14
Speaker
I think this was 2016, but I'm sure it was similar. 2016, we studied here. 2015, the IIT Kanpur is a very big and very off-quoted study. 1.2 million people lose their lives in India every year. Because of poor air quality, 25% is attributed to road transport.
00:25:34
Speaker
25% of that computer to go transfer three to four life people lose their lives every year in India alone every year in India alone. We will not discuss this even on page 17 of our newspapers.
00:25:47
Speaker
COVID may, please don't take me wrong, I've lost family in COVID, a lack of people died. National lockdowns, it has changed the way we think about our personal interpersonal reaction, relationships, we do all kinds of things. Three to four lack of people die every year and have been dying for the last couple of decades. Every year because of road transport related pollution, not just in India, across the world, of course India has the worst situation.
00:26:16
Speaker
You know, people hate it when I say this, but COVID actually came as a boon from God. It helped save lives in our country. That was a year when fewer people have died on the road. This is a fact. I'm not even talking about the ailments that people have of the lung problem, all kinds of other issues of cancer that are also not talking about that. Even road accidents came down.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. And the incumbents have more interest in making change happen. I must realize this. I mean, this is not an Indian phenomenon across the world. Dieselgate was not an India-oriented scam. Dieselgate, if you remember, three, four years back, it happened. Volkswagen was the one that was like a slap on the wrist to say, oh, you've been doing this. And then
00:26:58
Speaker
Pretty much all the big automobile companies across the world started showing up saying that yes, they had sent wrong data or yes, they had done a little bit of that. Every company, pretty much the largest of the large companies were involved in some shape, matter, or form of trying to modify results to make sure that they could sell more polluting vehicles on their own.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's a fact. Because you invested thousands of crores of rupees in setting up petrol diesel, LPGC and the infrastructure. How can you walk away from it? And it's not just that infrastructure. I mean, there are workshops, there are employees working in workshops, there is an entire green market of parts. I mean, oh, sir, some year you suddenly have a change for building. There's a reason why every time the government announces and says that there should be more electrification, the people who will stand up and oppose it are the ones who are incumbents. Well, if it shows up, this is 2011, May, June.
00:27:51
Speaker
I am down in making an exit and all that is happening. And I'm beginning to think, okay, I should be doing this. I'm very disappointed that something like this will happen. So one question you wanted to build, you thought you should get into mobility and electric vehicles specifically, or just like hybrid vehicle, because maybe the Tesla was probably not even like a known name.
00:28:14
Speaker
Not even something that was being considered and that meant no. Absolutely. So it was clear that something has to be done and you'd be surprised of how things played out. This is late 2011. I'm playing golf with some buddies. I'm not very good at it, but you know, my handicap is probably a few thousand. And I'm cribbing. You're cribbing over the price at like 30 lakhs. Yes. And I'm cribbing away. So, you know, in classic Punjuss type.
00:28:43
Speaker
This is when the thing struck. This is the problem. Everyone says it is not their problem. It is someone else's problem. By the time we came back from that, the day from the golf course, it was a Sunday. It was a nearing afternoon. I was sitting behind. I remember those two guys were sitting in front. I was sitting in the rear seat and I just came forward between the two guys.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I did this. So the vision of all digging when we started and has been there since then is carbon free transportation.
Altegreen's Vision for Carbon-Free Transportation
00:29:10
Speaker
And it's clear to us that even if all vehicles become on that first day of February, 2013, if they all become electric, still the people will continue to die because vehicles are becoming progressively older and more polluting as time passes. And they are dying because of the vehicles that are there already.
00:29:30
Speaker
I'm not fixing that problem. So they will continue to die. It's just that the newer vehicles that are going to show up are going to be electric. This is in case if all of these vehicles can move to electric. So then we said, okay, so place where we need to fix this is going to be one existing vehicle.
00:29:47
Speaker
Okay, electrification is going to be key. We were very clear that alternate fuels are obviously easier to use because we already have existing systems, but electrification of fans quotation is going to happen. Electric vehicles are a lot more simpler and I can get into a long monologue on why electric, but electric vehicles are a lot simpler. The classic example of 2000 moving parts in a combustion engine vehicle versus 17 moving parts in an electric vehicle. So they're a lot simpler.
00:30:16
Speaker
And the engine and the motors are themselves very efficient. A combustion engine operates best case scenario at 25% efficiency. Best case scenario. 25%. What is this 25%? Like, what does it show?
00:30:33
Speaker
If you like to hear stories of founders, then we have tons of great stories from entrepreneurs who have built billion dollar businesses. Just search for the founder thesis podcast on any audio streaming app like Spotify, Ghana, Apple Podcasts and subscribe to the show.
00:30:53
Speaker
So, the fuel that you're burning and the objective of your vehicle, which is transportation. So, what was the energy that you consumed, the fuel that you burned, and what percentage of that was helping, you know, moving you to your final destination, which is mobility, right? You use a car for mobility, you don't sit in a car and say, you know, I can't buy an air conditioner for a car, because I can't buy an air conditioner for our home. So, I'm just sitting in a car and I'm sitting like, you know, move on, right?
00:31:23
Speaker
Transportation is the need. So how much of that energy is converted to moving forward, right? So 25% is best case. I'm talking about good cars, global cars, and then 25% efficiency. And electric motor line equals hand efficiency. Huge difference, right? I'm talking engine to engine. Huge difference.
00:31:40
Speaker
So it's very clear that you need to have electric mobility. The drive plane has to be electrifying. That's where we started and we said, okay, let's start working, taking baby steps towards electrification. So now you start thinking of it. So 2012, we had done some work
00:32:02
Speaker
I was able to find a very good set of people. He refused in control engineering. He was six years junior to me in Santa Barbara and Norwegian-American guy.
00:32:12
Speaker
success of my unit just happened to become friends with him. I was in fact taking one of his labs and anyway, that's also a long story. But he was the only guy who I remotely knew was connected to other movies. I don't have anyone at home. I know. So I called him up. I said, dude, I want to do something in this space. What kind of things can we do? And so that's when the conversation starts.
00:32:35
Speaker
So we had been doing some background work trying to figure out whether electrification, what kind of electrification, what kind of power needs of the country have. And also we had instrumented my passenger car. I still remember. He said that, why don't you give me some drive profiles from India?
00:32:53
Speaker
Now today, this word has become very common because you have an own application on your own. What is the meaning of this word? Drive profile. So the idea is, how do people drive? Which means how much power do they consume? How much do they accelerate? Do they use the brake pedal? What is going on in a car in India? Today, you have GPS applications that are written on your phone. You can reverse compute these kind of things. But in 2011, nothing like that exists, right?
00:33:20
Speaker
So he told me, he sent me potentiometers from the US and I instrumented my own Honda car much to my wife's dismay. But we did that. And she's like, dude, we're going to save the planet. Be proud. And I'm telling my
00:33:42
Speaker
2011 my daughter was four years old and trying to convince her that your dad is going to save the planet and she's like what does save mean? What is planet? But anyway so
00:33:58
Speaker
I'm instrumenting the car and sticking all kinds of things on the gas pedal and on the accelerator on the brake on the clutch and then trying to. So I record some data, the data access and all the data has been coded how I'm pressing each of these pedals for how long I'm pressing. So I send these over to Lhasa, a data file gets created, I have a laptop running there and I'm driving around in Delhi.
00:34:20
Speaker
I sent this fire to Lhasa and Lhasa then called me late night morning for him and tells me, dude, who was driving? I said, I was driving. So what happened? You used to drive when you were here in California and then I said, what happened to you, dude? I said, why? What happened?
00:34:40
Speaker
Dude, I really thought that this person should be hanged because they have no clue of how to drive. It's like all over the place. You know, you're accelerated, brake, accelerated, brake, accelerated, brake, that's all you're doing. I said, this is life in India, you know. This is city driving in India.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, you're driving slowly, first of all, speeds are very low, and then you're being cut off by something, a cyclist, a motorcyclist, there's a bus that throws up, there's a car on the street, all kinds of things are going on. If nothing else, there might be a speed breaker. Indian speed breakers, what is a speed breaker? I said it's equivalent to also a sign.
00:35:12
Speaker
You know, but in a stop sign, you may run a stop sign. You don't want to sleep in India. It's not like a gradual thing. So in Europe, they call them sleeping policemen. But here, they're like inverted U shape, you know, dome structure. You have to come to a dead stop and then
00:35:32
Speaker
You will climb anyway, that's all. Anyway, I said, these are realities. We don't like people to drive fast and hence we make sure that there are enough speed breakers on the road. We don't appreciate when people drive fast. A lot has changed in the last five, six years. People are...
00:35:46
Speaker
today willing to discuss higher speeds on highways. Our roads have become a lot better. So he says there's a lot that can be done because it's clear that you do accelerate, deaccelerate, accelerate, deaccelerate. And that's why this whole concept of regenerative energy. Every time you deaccelerate, you are wasting energy that you had consumed to accelerate the vehicle. Now you deaccelerate by braking. What's happening when you brake?
00:36:12
Speaker
the kinetic energy is converted to heat in your brake pads. Noise and heat, that is why you have a screeching noise and your engine vibrates and the hook vibrates. All these are law of conservation of energy, right? That same kinetic energy is converting to different forms of energy, vibrational, functional, all kinds of vehicle skates, the screeching line.
00:36:34
Speaker
So is there a way we can convert that energy into electric energy? So the whole idea is 91% of electricity comes from whole grids. It would be wrong to create an electric vehicle that is running purely on electric if I'm going to be charging it from the whole grid. And hence,
00:36:52
Speaker
Is there something we can do on existing vehicles and convert that waste energy, that 75% of waste energy? Can I convert out of that to electric energy and use that to boost my vehicle? So very, very noble thing. We started working on it, but the idea was we will create the electric system. Now we started looking at sourcing components again.
00:37:16
Speaker
And this is what a hybrid vehicle is, right? Like this is what Prius would also be doing, that capture, that baking power, the waste of energy due to breaking. You're absolutely right. But the Prius is built as a dual energy vehicle, right? It's built with two transmissions, there's electric and there is this, and then there is some way in which power to the wheels is given through two different systems.
00:37:41
Speaker
Obviously, Teodar must serve this. It's not easy to build a full transmission vehicle, but they've done in different forms of wheels, also electric first, and then, you know, an engine as a backup or an engine that drives in the beginning, and then you do electric. So, there are different things that happen. There are different forms of hybrid electric vehicles. We were saying that we will build an electric system that can need retrofit
00:38:06
Speaker
on existing petrol diesel vehicles, converting them to hybrid. My expertise is in building the electric system that can be small enough that can be retrofit in a car.
00:38:19
Speaker
So this is a very noble thing. OK, let's start looking at motors. And then you realize that motors, the engine is like the ambient temperature inside the engine is like 100 plus degrees. This is the ambient. If you touch the metal, you can't touch it. If you want it to 300, there's ignition. There's an ignition happening several times a minute. There is too much in happening inside that. Imagine the heat there.
00:38:49
Speaker
It's a very different thing that you have to build and we realize that we will have to build these technologies. India is a very different beast. It's not something that you can just bring from another geography and put it inside a vehicle. I'm a big proponent of this. It's high time that people started looking at India as a market, not just to say that, okay, I built this for Europe, but India should be able to use it.
00:39:13
Speaker
My geography and my needs are very different compared to the rest of the world. Anything that is considered of views in the world is a day to day scenario in this country.
00:39:23
Speaker
As far as mobility is concerned and hence, you need a very different kind of vehicle. Diesel petrol has been around for a hundred years. We've been used to that. And the vehicles have been made so well that they're able to allow all these kinds of freedoms to be given to people. You can overload, you can run inside water, over water.
00:39:44
Speaker
And it works, right? And it keeps running. They figured that part out. So electrical technology also has to reach that place where it will allow us to do that. So that's when we said, OK, we have to build our own motors, our own controllers. They have to be very small enough because, OK, so you say that, OK, who are going to be my consumer? And then you realize, well, it's not going to be people who are driving 22 kilometers a day, which is what 22 or 30 kilometers a day, which is what a typical passenger is to drive in our country.
00:40:12
Speaker
We were targeting four meters, and it has to be something different. It has to be people arriving. Yeah, 250, 300, which is a taxi. When you look at the taxi that are present in the country at that time, most of them are diesel. And, you know, the guys, the Suzuki Desire, I don't know, Tata Indigo, and the Toyota ETOs, you know, those kinds of vehicles, then you open them.
00:40:33
Speaker
The the the foot of the engine and then you realize this is my motor not it will be because there is it's like there's hardly any weaving space inside that thing and even the big so it's not like a small petrol engine so like so then you need to miniaturize everything.
00:40:48
Speaker
and then create that miniaturizing then typically miniaturization is also associated with a software thing you know it's a tiny word so you have to be careful you know it should not do this it should not follow whatever right xyz but in the case of a vehicle it has to move through the abuse so your electrical system has to be very nice and so
00:41:05
Speaker
We started doing that. We started doing a lot of innovations and making miniaturized good products when we did our work in there to create the electrical foundation that would be to get profit on existing vehicles, converting them into electric hybrids. And we were giving anywhere from depending on the type of vehicle we were building. This was also used for small trucks.
00:41:26
Speaker
So depending on the kind of vehicle we were giving anywhere from 11-12% all the way up to 33%. There are reports that were published in the Times of India in economic time where our customers were standing up and saying that they are seeing this kind of benefit. How many years did it take you to start doing beta testing?
00:41:42
Speaker
So the first year was in the U.S. 2012. This is before the company was founded. We took our first round of funding around December 2012, January 2013. If I remember correctly, it was a little under a million dollars. There was a seed. Before that, all the expenses were done by MIP.
00:42:01
Speaker
But in any case, we started doing that. We laid the foundation of the company in January 2013. And in 2012 itself, we'd actually started filing patents. We were very clear that innovation is going to be key. And if we are innovating, I don't want it to be an afterthought. If I'm doing something new, I want the world to know that India can also innovate in e-meads. Why should we not? And it's clear that we're driven out of India, for India. So we'll do that. So we started filing patents.
00:42:31
Speaker
and you know the obvious thing you pile up in India and everyone just nods you tell someone you're beaten in India and you say well I have six patents in the U.S.
00:42:45
Speaker
But it's also, things are changing, but the idea for us today have 26 global patients that are being granted to us, not a client, but granted to us. Once again, the idea is not that we want to create a moat and tech people, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this, but to kind of communicate to the entire planet that our geography needs innovation.
00:43:06
Speaker
I'm not saying that I build better motors than the best manufacturer in the world. No, they build much better stuff. All I'm saying is that if you need to build something from my geography, you will have to innovate. And we are using some of the innovations that we have done.
00:43:22
Speaker
So matching the needs of this geography in this patent and it has been globally accepted that these are innovations that have been done. That's all we are doing by saying, proving the point that you need to innovate if you need to deliver this. And there's a reason why we're building the most efficient system in the best vehicle. I think in December 2013 is when we had tested our first version, meta version of the kit. We called it high-pixie. So that's pretty fast, like within the years.
00:43:49
Speaker
So no, but we've done a whole lot of groundwork in 2012. So we know exactly what we needed to build. And 2013, when the pandemic, we started off by rolling out, you know, starting to build across modern people. Very, very difficult. We were clueless. We had no idea how this is done. But, you know, you have a drive, you start meeting people, start figuring out our motors, what is the network, what, how we will be. I remember as founders, Dr. John Mangura joined us. Um, um,
00:44:17
Speaker
He is a PhD in Electromagnetics. He knows only rotating machines. That's all he knows. Shaleen, Bitfilani, I'm Ahmedabad, finance and manufacturing background. So this was the perfect combination software, control engineering, which is the hardware electronics software. Then you have motors and you have a finance and manufacturing guy. Perfect combination for guys not together.
00:44:38
Speaker
Again, a message to entrepreneurs, it's perfectly all right if you're just one. But typically, I've noticed that it's very difficult to balance a stool on just one leg. Try to have more than one. People with complementary skills, don't be afraid of sharing your wealth or whatever, your ownership. Share the stake with them. Make them feel proud that they're also part of the founding team. It'll help you in the long run. Again, you're driven by a vision
00:45:05
Speaker
If the vision isn't money, it's a different thing. But if the vision is we need to change something, we need to do this because we want to save people's lives. Today, the employers are hurting. And you ask any one of these guys, the vision is that we might not be surgeons, but we can still save lives. We're doing it because we want to be behind a better planet. Otherwise, no one joins a startup company that is working out of a garage when they have to leave their cushy jobs in an air-conditioned building. I mean, startup, an electric vehicle, there's a lot to do with software stacks.
00:45:33
Speaker
Embedded software, embedded cars, it's a different beast. So anyway, so we had our first beta. What is the product? Like it's replacement to the combustion engine. So it's basically a kit which has a motor, a controller, electronics, a lot of power convergent, the battery pack, and it is retrofit in the vehicle. So you take your regular, let's say a Suzuki designer.
00:45:55
Speaker
and you have your electrical system that you embed in it, it has to be done in such a way that it doesn't interfere with the vehicle at all. So whatever is happening with the diesel engine continues to happen, but you are taking inputs and you are somehow being in a position to assist the engine. So the engine has its own efficiency and non-efficiency zones. So you are trying through the energy that you have recuperated, you're trying to
00:46:21
Speaker
change a little bit of the dynamics of the engine so that it's always, or you're trying your best to run it at the most efficient zone and just stick to that. It's obviously IP, what we do in it, but the idea is that you do something like that. And that's what we were doing. And we were getting an improvement of anywhere from whatever 12, 13, 14% all the way up to 33% improvement. So
00:46:45
Speaker
We did that. It was a great thing. We had, I should have said Alpha version by December, 2013. We had probably a good beta in 2014, December in 2015 is when we went to ARAI to get a type of rule for this as a kit. So now what is ARAI? ARAI, the Automobile Research Association of India, which is where this is the Apex body that decides all the rules and regulations. So what happens in a vehicle?
00:47:14
Speaker
So all everything from your steering wheel and the headlamps and the motors and the tires and everything in our standard vehicle is controlled through a set of KIS, which is Automotive India Standards. And those standards, the inputs for this is AI, they're based in Pune, amazing people. They set all these standards, there is BIS, there's all kinds of things, the Bureau of Standards and all that, but they are the ones that deal with the automotive side.
00:47:39
Speaker
And they will say, well, you have to cater to this very, very nice people because we were able to work with them. India is amongst, I'm saying few countries. I don't know of any other country, but I don't know in India. India is one country that has an entire standard for hybridizing vehicles. We were part of that team, which also held the incident because of the CIT wave.
00:48:01
Speaker
Yes. So CNG was one, but we were part of the way that also kind of moved it, not just to CNG, but to electric. So the whole concept of electric hybridization, we are one of the few countries that has an entire standard for it. I did that. So this is 2015 is when we got the type of tools for it. And that's when we started working with a lot of customers.
00:48:23
Speaker
So we started working with the real customer, you know, doing customer trials with them. We did not want to do anything illegal, so we've never wanted to do any customer trials on kit and technology that had not been approved by ARAI. We did that.
00:48:38
Speaker
And then we started customer trial. We worked with various companies in cab companies, transportation companies were using these vehicles. We had type of rules for many vehicles. I think it was very well accepted, but at some point, I think we realized that we were a thorn for some of the OEMs because we were kind of delaying the buying decision of a new vehicle for a driver. I mean, if we were in doing the efficiency of an older vehicle,
00:49:07
Speaker
Then the driver would say, acha tola krusal ba karirunga, lika ganikri. A typical driver would change his vehicle because the efficiency has come down and now the mileage has reduced to an extent where the match is not working out for him. So perhaps that was one of the reasons we also realized that in some cases the driver was driving an owner's vehicle.
00:49:30
Speaker
And there we used to make money out of perhaps some amount of fuel pilferage. Now when I introduce an electric system which has telematics in it, again, new things in those days as telematics, I can tell you exactly how much a vehicle was driven. How many times did it stop? Why it stopped at a gas station? I mean, all that thing is clearly documented.
00:49:49
Speaker
OK, so the device was IoT enabled, that issue. Yes, everything was. So obviously, a PhD in computer science would be hell no. So software has always been a very key and integral part of anything that we build. And this was a one-size-fits-all device like that. India, you're not allowed to do that. So you have to have it customized, because once again,
00:50:17
Speaker
I can't change anything in the vehicle. That was our model. You can put it inside and you can remove it. Nothing happens to your vehicle. Obviously, there might be a couple of poles here and there, and just to hold that thing together. But other than that, we would not. So everything had to be customized according to the vehicle that we were building. We had type of rules and trials for many kinds of vehicles that were being used in different segments.
00:50:39
Speaker
So whatever it be, at the end of the day, we built this, people were at all, we displayed it, they just appreciated it too much. And I think the OEM started coming forward to us. Now we are in the retrofit business, right? Which is very difficult. You're having to convince a driver that this is for the driver, you don't save money, or you're going to a fleet and trying to convince them that this is the right thing to do. It's a hard sell.
00:51:03
Speaker
It's a very hard sell. It's not easy. Because once again, you're talking about having to make the investment, he or she having to make it or, you know, someone having to do something, what happens to the warranty, all the way to the route of warranty anyway. So on that campaign, we were bringing in warranty ourselves. We did the entire line yard. We were getting financing, all kinds of things we did.
00:51:21
Speaker
But by that time, the OEM, and what was it priced at? Like for converting a vehicle for it. So this was overall, for a typical vehicle, it would be 75,000 rupees.
00:51:34
Speaker
Also, you have a 6 lakh rupee vehicle and you put a 75,000 rupee in this thing. You would need to change the batteries. These were lead-acid batteries. You could change them every three years. The investment was another 15,000 or maybe a little less. 10,000 when we were doing it along with a very good OEM partner. Excite was our OEM partner, so we built batteries for them. All in all, it was actually a good thing.
00:51:58
Speaker
I feel that probably at some point in the future, we will have more of a hybridization thing. I'm already seeing many steps towards that. But anyway, we were very clear that the mission is to save lives and the mission is to make sure that we are working on electrified transportation, whether retrofit or not.
Manufacturing and Market Strategy for EVs
00:52:16
Speaker
At that point, the OEM started showing up and they said, there's no point in fighting about these things and let's get over the consequences. Why don't you help us in making electric drivetrains for our future electric vehicles?
00:52:28
Speaker
You know, you've built this wonderful system and in close doors they would actually save me. We drive really hard. We have been doing this for the last six to eight years. We have not been able to do what you guys did in the last couple of years. So we know that you are technologists, you're good guys. Why don't you work together on doing this? So we were very excited.
00:52:49
Speaker
I'm trying to sell it to so many people. Now I will just sit here. I will talk to a team that will make good electric life frames for them. And we will be very soon. And we are fixing everything. And so I'm going to the source and from there, you know, fixing that and everything becomes okay.
00:53:09
Speaker
We had contracts from two-wheeler, three-wheeler, four-wheeler and farm equipment tractor manufacturers to build such gripe trains for their future vehicles. Extremely excited. This was a research contract or was it a manufacturer itself?
00:53:26
Speaker
Yes, this was actually a manufacturing contract to say that we will obviously expedite the development for you, for your drive things. We will hold the IP for these drive things because this is this. But the objective is that we will supply you with manufactured drive things because it takes a different amount of expertise and you as conventional combustion engine guys don't have it.
00:53:50
Speaker
We will be providing you this. Like Maruti used to put Fiat diesel engine because they didn't have in-house diesel.
00:53:59
Speaker
Not of course. I mean, Maruti, all these guys used to move the same thing until they built it. For example, Maruti in the beginning used to have the Subros air conditioning equipment. The air track system and the blue button from Subros. So we were just saying that. Now for the drive chain, it was a different thing. We would be making full electric drive frames for their future full electric vehicles. And hence, we have the contract from two-wheeler, three-wheeler, four-wheeler, and off equipment manufacturer.
00:54:27
Speaker
We are rolling in money for the first time. We are seeing revenues coming in, interaction with OEMs. They make these drivetrain, patents are flowing in, all kinds of very good things are happening. And then we start shipping them these prototype drivetrains on their vehicles. We start testing them and then we realize that the incumbents, it's important for them to show that they're working on electric vehicles. But the end objective is not to convert very quickly.
00:54:55
Speaker
My drive is to make things happen tomorrow. My drive is not to wait for the next 10 years to do this, right? They're looking at the infrastructure and thousands of crores they've invested, their investors and their shareholders and what they expect, and that is not going to happen. They fear that electric vehicles will cannibalize their existing business. It's not that suddenly their market share will increase from X percent to Y percent, where X will continue
00:55:22
Speaker
and why we get added to it. It's very practical. They're very good, very sane people. And so it became very clear to us all said and done. This is not going to be expedited by them. And Tesla was a classic example. Tesla was voted as the best vehicle ever made. Not the best electric vehicle ever made. The best vehicle ever made is by a company that was led by also a computer science geek.
00:55:47
Speaker
We say that was, you know, this is, I'm talking about, we are already in 2018, or 2018, 2019 and 2018. And we said that, guys, the number is enough. Okay, let's, if it takes to become an OEM, we'll become an OEM. So we made a full electric two-wheeler, a full electric three-wheeler, and full electric four-wheeler. And we made them, and we put prototype once again, the power of three, I made these three, put them out for people. I said, guys,
00:56:15
Speaker
You're going to be using them. It's clear to me that, so a couple of things that happened more than we would focus on the last mile transport segment. Any change that happens at the bottom end of the pyramid for India, it doesn't happen. The US and the Western economy, they start with the best way to ever build, you know, ludicrous, more, 650 mile range, winning the doors, all kinds of things that people, you know, are in between or in disbelief. Oh, don't be talking.
00:56:43
Speaker
Right. And you start looking at it. And finally, what you are selling is a $35,000 break. It happens. What's Hindustan make? Everything. And when I say Hindustan, India and the emerging markets, South Asia, Africa, South America, very similar flow. Focus on the bottom end of the pyramid. The guys who have the least money are the ones who will first start taking the risk, right? Because it has some financial gains from them. India is a country which has the most famous ad campaign of Kitna Deepika.
00:57:16
Speaker
It's a reality in our country and I'm very proud of the fact that we're conscious about our spending. There's no harm in doing that. We're not stingy. We spend a lot of money. But we're conscious about money that we spend, right? So this is good. So we're part of that. Yeah, we're part of that. So we have to do something like that. So I build these, I put it out, and I say, guys, you take your pick.
00:57:40
Speaker
You tell me which one you're willing to bet on, which one you're willing to sign up for customers. This was to logistics fleet operators. Yes. So this was to the general public. Obviously, I am talking about two-wheeler, three-wheeler, one-commercial formula, largely commercial. We were clear that commercial guys are the first to adopt because they are seeing benefit.
00:58:00
Speaker
They have no attachment to the vehicle is not a driver or willing to take the risk. And so most of these guys came forward and said, you need a three wheeler. This is the right thing. Now we've done a lot of things. We've done a lot of research by then. We've spoken to the 300 guys to figure out what their needs were, how much they were driving in diesel.
00:58:17
Speaker
We were clear from day one, when we make a vehicle, it has to compete with diesel. My competition is not other electric vehicles. I do not want to hear we are better than that guy and we are better than that guy. It has to compete with diesel. You know, apples to apples, they're both there. Can it do everything that diesel can do? I'm a technologist. I have to make sure that I never give him a vehicle, which is a compromised vehicle. Why did you do overloading?
00:58:47
Speaker
nothing he drive the vehicle in a certain way we know how he drives what he needs he's figured out the economic force don't try to reach down he figured it out give him that respect that he deserves right let him do it so that's when we said that okay
00:59:05
Speaker
We left a bit and hence a lot of innovation started happening even in that. So it's not just about making the tiniest motor and then lightest motor. Plus the guy's going to overload by 30, 40, 50, 100%. He needs it to run for 10 years. Can you guarantee that?
00:59:20
Speaker
It has to be serviceable. You don't throw away things in our country. It will be remounted. It has to be serviceable. It has to be manufacturable. There are lots of things that you have to cater to. It has to run in 50-degree ambient temperatures, and you're not making it for Bangalore alone.
00:59:37
Speaker
So a lot of things that are obvious, it has to be able to run under water. So there will be water login stagnation, all kinds of things that will happen. There will be dust or cool metal. It has to be environmentally safe. Like I said, anything that is considered a blues anywhere in the world is a day-to-day scenario in the factory. If I cannot create an electric vehicle that does that, I am not in the market. I don't want to be in the market.
00:59:59
Speaker
That's what we did. We looked at everything. And hence, today, the three-wheeler that we have, the delivery vehicle, we focused on three-wheelers, because that is what people were willing to bet on. But our vehicle today has the longest range on a single charge. It's been ARAI tested at 181 kilometers, but on the remote with all kinds of adverts, which make a layout tool. You can load it the way you want to load it, drive it with your foot or brake pedals or whatever. It's a piece kilometer. Why 120?
01:00:26
Speaker
Because in our 1500 vehicle that we spoke to, they typically said 8200 km in metal alone. With over throwing diesel that is available anywhere and everywhere, he is driving 8200 km. So I need to give him that thing. Okay, one more saying. I am not in the transportation business, I am in the peace of mind business. I need to ensure that he never thinks that he has to stop for 5 hours to get the car to wake up. What do you think? What do you think?
01:00:55
Speaker
You focus on your business. This thing is going to run with you for you the entire day. All I ask for is three, three and a half hours of charging bus. So we made a faster charger that allows him to charge on a regular 220V 16A socket. I'm saying that you will be able to drive comfortably up suddenly because it's electric, you start to know that I'm going to drive 400 kilometres per byte.
01:01:18
Speaker
Right? Suddenly you want to drive 100 kilometers a day. We are doing this, so longest range on a single chart. It has the highest volumetric capacity. So we realized that India is moving away from last time delivery, has moved away from image to volumetric. You buy a tiny little cell from Amazon and it comes in a large package, right?
01:01:43
Speaker
Well, yes. So it's all bit of volumetric. So we need to support a larger volume. They are using bigger vehicles because they want that's the only vehicle that they can get which can support this volume. We created a vehicle that can give you 90% of what you can load on a CV car on a four-wheeler platform.
01:01:59
Speaker
on a small commercial four-wheeler airport. So typically it's 192 cubic feet that you get in a typical small commercial vehicle. On a three-wheeler, you can get 177 cubic feet. It's the largest that you can possibly think of as long as you're within the limitations posed by the Government of India as far as standards are concerned. You will never do anything that is against it. We created that, but you have to create a vehicle that allows you to reach the airport.
01:02:27
Speaker
How did you create that? Like you made it longer and wider? Yes, but within the norms, but we had to see three dealers that Genesis, who are from passenger vehicles. And then they created the same platform. They created a cargo vehicle. So he built a platform that was higher. Once again, peace of mind. You just write.
01:02:52
Speaker
So we have to make structural changes in the vehicle. We built independent suspension that we made changes in the vehicle to support that. But these were the needs. So focus on the testimony that built something against that. That's what we did. And today,
01:03:06
Speaker
We're present in nine cities. We have eligibility to sell in 14 states of the country. When did the vehicle project get launched? 2019, you decided to become an OEM, right? An OEM, but we had built that first electric three-wheeler in 2018. We launched our first branded vehicle in January of 2021, three years later. Most startups who have started creating vehicles have not been around for three years.
01:03:36
Speaker
We tested a three-wheeler for three years, made sure that it was something that would compete with diesel. That's the generation of this company. We started selling in January 2021, obviously COVID hit very quickly, but anyway, we started building on that. We have amongst the best customers on board. Most of the e-commerce companies were using that product. And then we realized that now it's a question of scaling. We've proven our vehicles. They've been running for over five months in different
01:04:04
Speaker
Geographies, so like I said, nine cities, so we were not saying that we could not celebrate. So across India, north, south, east, west, we had driven them. Some vehicles have done 25, 30,000 kilometers on them already. They were performing very well. Honestly, there will be leading issues. I'm the first one to impact. I had a very long article that I wrote for economic times, only because of this reason that they're not going to be afraid of failures. They'll call them failure breakdowns that happen. Innovation, pain.
01:04:32
Speaker
If you are afraid of innovation, afraid of failures, afraid of these things, you can never innovate. And I was thinking the Clayton Christopherson analogy of saying there is a sustaining innovation versus disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovators will cause great things to happen, but of course there will also be failures and breakdowns that could happen.
01:04:56
Speaker
We are afraid of that. Just make sure that as part of your planning process, you know how to take hold of it. You're also the customer's livelihood that is depending on you. Hence, we call our vehicle also, our vehicle is branded Neve. It's a new energy electric vehicle, of course, but Neve, it is the foundation of our person's livelihood. We are cognizant of it. We are not saying that it was very good for the planet at all. We are trying to be about the planet.
01:05:20
Speaker
They're making more money. Today, on vehicle, because it gives 120 kilometers of uninterrupted mobility to Jaffa Chachalal. We have an office in Mysore. We routinely drive our vehicle back to Mysore. And still, there is 22% charge that is still left. So it does 150 kilometers. But anyway, that is fine. So what is the economics for a driver? How much money does it save? Yeah. So very clear, more typical auto, diesel auto will take anywhere from four to four and a half rupees a kilometer, a typical
01:05:50
Speaker
me, you'll be able to get around 80 pesos. Is there a difference in the one-time payment? Yeah, so what we realized is that all commercial wages are financed. No one pays you cash down. So that is only a down payment that you have to give. So you pay a down payment. That down payment has to be identical in both cases. That is number one.
01:06:09
Speaker
Number two, then you have a monthly cost that you have to bear, which is the cost of diesel and the EMR. I have to make sure that this combined thing has to be a lot in the favor of the electric vehicle.
01:06:21
Speaker
And we were able to do it very peacefully, even when it replaces the battery. And obviously, we have now investment to raise the 300 floor round. So every investor has gone through the math. And it is very clear there is a TCO benefit over the AKF period, even with the battery pack replacement, the TCO benefit is going to be up to 50%.
01:06:41
Speaker
TCO stands for Total Cost of Ownership. Total Cost of Ownership. So that includes the EMI that he has to pay, that includes the diesel or the fuel cost that he has to pay, the maintenance that he will need to worry if the battery replacement has to be done over the lifetime of a vehicle, except the lifetime from the eight years. See now, things are changing and telling people, why do you have to run a vehicle for 10 years? Give me a good reason, right? Anyway, saving and download commercial vehicles. As long as on a monthly basis, earlier what was happening is you were
01:07:10
Speaker
Then most of these I was making about 13,000 rupees a month. If I can ensure that you're making 20,000 rupees a month, I suppose, if I can ensure that. Do you really care how long this vehicle lasts? Why do you care? No, it's not part of the job. As far as you're concerned, you're making more money on a monthly basis. And you have enough money left that ensure that you will be able to get your next vehicle on board. Why are we even concerned about this? Mindset change is going to happen from this whole concept of ownership.
01:07:36
Speaker
There's a lot that has been written about it. Ownership versus releasing transportation as a service, even if you own it. I don't believe in ownership here. I think the good thing, but ownership that leads to a positive change, there are various models. And that's why I said that innovation is not just about making the vehicle, but innovation in the entire ecosystem where you're charging for the financing windows for the service and sales. There has to be innovation and you'll constantly start seeing
01:08:02
Speaker
Those innovations now from our beginning, when we expand our network, like I said, we've raised 300 floors from very, very good investors, 6N, Reliance, investor, and also Exponential, investors from the US and Singapore, Singapore, Metro, the urban transportation part.
01:08:18
Speaker
This was the first major round you raised? Yes. I always run a funded company. We very many planned that a lot of investors came on board and they had supported us but never anyone that was frivolous like taking money from builders or diamond merchants didn't happen.
01:08:38
Speaker
And like you invested in a manufacturing facility like you? Manufactured in-house? Of course. Yes. Yes. Like I said, everything from steel to wheel owned by us. Obviously, I have an entire ecosystem of partners who are working with me. So, I have not created a foundry where I am doing aluminum die-craft with a canvas. So, in Hindalfo would provide me with the aluminum die-craft parts. I have invested in rolling.
01:09:04
Speaker
Yes, so in my partners are interested in pooling, so they have to cater to my standards of quality and they can supply me only for my IT-realized things. So I don't make my headlights, I don't make my tires and my wheels, I don't have a brake line, why should I make them? Nobody makes that, even Bharati works with OEMs.
01:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they make millions. But the core electric stuff, anything that is remotely, the motor, the controller, the decimals, the hard missiles, the split cluster, the telematics tab, the gearbox, the battery management system, anything that is remotely electric on which my vehicle has to depend is under all dignity and control. Start to finish.
01:09:41
Speaker
So, where is your factory? It's all in Bangalore. Yeah, we're all in Bangalore. Of course, it's a smaller unit because we've got about 250 odd vehicles on the road. And like I said, they've been testing them now with the Spartan Girls to expand.
01:09:57
Speaker
Basically right now you have achieved product market fit in a way and now you're entering the growth. We have significant orders. We have orders for over 5,000 vehicles and that's what gave us the company. These orders are backed by advance and this is not like someone saying, how to banade me lago.
01:10:13
Speaker
backed by advances because I needed to be absolutely certain. And those are the ones that ensure that to the investors also that give them a lot of confidence that this is really good things. Now we are now expanding our manufacturing, opening up a new factory, expanding our manufacturing capacity, all of it.
01:10:31
Speaker
It will be in the vicinity of Bangalore. We're not going too far from it, but we are currently out scouting for really nice large areas where we would be able to get local manpower. Once again, our mission is not to create a monolithic factory where lack of vehicles can be made. I don't like that concept. Industry 4.0, we will build smaller, I call them mini factories, in different geographies of India so that I can take the swaps from the government of India.
01:10:58
Speaker
or the state governments that want to attract electric vehicle manufacturers, I also get access to local manpower. So I'm doing something for that region instead of scientific to get understand that become my strategy also as a global when I step out of India.
01:11:13
Speaker
All the components of the parts are remained in one place that ensures that the quality is up. But then the assembly can happen with partners in different parts of the country. And it helps reduce my logistic cost also. Today my logistic cost is at what centimeter the total value cost is very hard. But what can it do?
01:11:30
Speaker
It's a smaller vehicle, it's a much cheaper vehicle, right? So the percentage in green is like zero cost in transportation, but it's still a four-meter vehicle. It doesn't matter whether it's on three meters or four meter vehicle. So cost of transportation is the same, whether you're transporting that or you're transporting a 13-lateral vehicle. So that is the big difference. And hence, you have to go all these kinds of things. So innovation doesn't stop that you're very clear.
01:11:56
Speaker
What is your current monthly production capacity and what is the target? Currently, our production capacity is around 6,000 vehicles a year, which is moving to 40,000 a year. That's where we are moving to. We will be presenting by then.
01:12:12
Speaker
like 40,000 by where we live. Oh, this has to be in the industry itself. Within 2022, financial year, 22, 23, we will definitely have reached that capacity. That's number one. Number two, our expansion plan across India, moving from the nine cities that we are in to over 60 cities that we will be presenting. That's going to happen in the same financial year. So lots of targets, financing partners coming on board, large financing partners that
01:12:40
Speaker
ensures that today three meters are being financed at 24%. Can you imagine? You buy a car and you get financing at 10%. Poor guy whose livelihood depends on it buys a vehicle where he gets financed at 24%.
Impact of EVs on Drivers and Industry Trends
01:12:51
Speaker
You see that somehow there's a huge injustice going on, right? So you've got to fix that. You want to make the driver feel like a hero.
01:12:59
Speaker
I am really, it's obviously helping him. He's getting 120 kilometers. He does two shifts now. And the reason now he's saying that I'm spending 14 hours on the road, but he's saying I'm learning a lot more money. And I said, but why are you struggling so much? You're making more money anyway. In doing this, he said,
01:13:21
Speaker
No, there's no freak, there's no freak, there's no engine noise, there's no vibration, micro-vibration for chaining, right? So, because he's not tired, he sets up the window and all that little bit, right? So, he will roll the fork when you're about somewhere else and he will make some more money in the process of drinking. Yeah, you're making more money. That is the change. It's not about technology, it's never about that. It's about making change happen. It comes back to the same thing that happened in HP. What do you want to make number for? You change anything in the movie.
01:13:47
Speaker
It has to be a drive to that and that is what inspired most of the people and the new people who are coming on board that this is the company that they want to be. It's not driven just solely by revenue, of course. It's very important. I know what it takes to create them very well, then that's true. So one of Tesla's biggest challenges was actually wrapping up their capacity and they had invested in robotic manufacturing and stuff like that. So what's your strategy to ramp up capacity?
01:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. So we've at a different level entirely, but when such things happen, these have to become learnings for other entrepreneurs. So it's clear that, you know, there is difficulty. Obviously the difficulty happens when you're making hundreds of thousands of millions of acre, right? It doesn't happen on day one, but this is bound to happen. And hence, either we plan to create giga factories and all that, or we say, no, my approach is why would be many factories.
01:14:39
Speaker
So then you can have parallelism. Think of many factories. You have four different platforms and four different geographies. You have a group-print ready. Most channels are not even on the internet. This is the group-print. Exactly. This is the store. This is how incoming. This is the quality process. This is the gameplay. This is when this will come. This is the length of your conveyor belt. It's a well-oiled, well-functioning group-print. This is the application. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
01:15:05
Speaker
Are you my partner? Are you willing to do this? Like a McDonaldization, the way McDonald's has that playbook. You can start 4, 5, 6, whatever. As long as you're cognizant that the part supply, your component supply has to be rock-solid. And that's something that we're focusing on.
01:15:22
Speaker
So the partnerships that we're putting in place are all people who can scale rapidly. Our own role, our own parts that we're making has to scale very rapidly. We're almost everywhere. That is where our focus is. So it's a dual thing and that's why it's when you come up with these kinds of... It's not just about putting a vision and creating one vehicle and then saying, okay, I need millions of dollars to come in.
01:15:43
Speaker
very seldom will it happen. You have to show, yeah, now you have to show what you've done in the back and what you intend to do going on. So there's a lot more that has to be done to do this. I'm really happy that our investors came forward. It's a very good site for the entire ecosystem of electric vehicles. Now, with this kind of money, people are saying, most of the space is serious. We are not going to be the only guys. We are not the only guys. A lot of very good work coming back. I mean, everyone is going to get funded because
01:16:12
Speaker
It starts a sector. There is serious money coming in. Brand-like reliance. It's not going to be a frivolous thing. So, a lot of things. Very aggressive income. It wants to make it a household name, right? What is the price of one vehicle and how much do you earn per vehicle? Like, what are your economics on it?
01:16:32
Speaker
So when volumes are low, then Rosvargons are very tiny, if at all. We always mandate that we are positive on every vehicle that we make. That's all. We are always lame, but it's tiny. But we're just glad that on every vehicle, we might make one rupee. But that definitely happened. We made a much superior vehicle. We are probably the most expensive vehicle in India today. Yet, we have investors supporting it.
01:16:57
Speaker
On the price is about close to about four lakh rupees. So it's about it's about 50. How does it compare to diesel? How much does a diesel cost? That's what I was saying about 55, 50 to 55,000 rupees more than that diesel.
01:17:14
Speaker
Which is not a very big premium. One last question. The financing part, are you looking at that as a revenue area as well? Like the FinTech or are you looking at that just as a enablers? Once again, we are very clear that we are an OEM and we are putting together an ecosystem of partners. In that partnership, financing companies are going to play a very key role. So I have to work with them to ensure that I'm looking at my end customer and saying, what is in it for him? What is the best thing that I can do with them?
01:17:44
Speaker
How can i give the financing company the confidence that was this is the company that you want to get on please do start investing in electric vehicles please do start investing in three-wheeler company they have this fear that maybe there this will be a non-performing asset what if it doesn't happen.
01:18:00
Speaker
I can allay that fear and suspicions through the network that I have created to the platform that I've created. I'm using the word platform. That ensures that I have a customer, I have a logistic company, I have now this guy who's going to buy the vehicle. Can I bring all these together and make sure that boss, your money is going to be saved. Anyway, you can give them data for the risk underwriting. You can show them that this is the earning that he's receiving from this vehicle.
01:18:28
Speaker
And your telematics, your IoT, because the vehicle is IoT enabled, so how many kilometers? Perfect. We need to tell them what was in case the default happened with wrong reasons, not because of the right reason, but wrong reason if the default can just turn the thing off, finished. Even if it's not the ignition on, I can turn it off. Even if the ignition is off, I can run the vehicle off. So, I mean, there's lots of things that we can do.
01:18:53
Speaker
That makes it safer. Yes, financing is going to be extremely key and it's not just in customer financing, revealer financing, it's the entire ecosystem letting them charge their finance. There are lots of things that need to happen in the space and we're working very, very closely with these partners. You'll start seeing those things beginning to unfold. And what is your turnover estimated for this year?
01:19:20
Speaker
It's too early to say, but we do intend to sell about 15,000 vehicles in potentially a 22 place. And that brings us to the end of this conversation. You would be delighted to learn that since we recorded this conversation with Dr. Saran, Alty Green has gone on to set up a 3 lakh square feet plant near Bangalore with the capacity to produce 55,000 EVs per year.