The future is electric and we want to be part of it. However, with electric scooters priced at around 1 lakh Rupees, buying a new electric scooter is expensive for many people. Further, they can’t let their good old Activas stay idle. Is there a way to get these existing workhorses onto the electric bandwagon?
In this episode, I speak with Ravikumar from Starya mobility, which is building a propulsion kit to convert any gearless ICE scooter into an electric scooter. Their retrofit kit is indigenously designed, ARAI approved, and is available for trials in Bangalore.
There are more than 60 million conventional scooters on Indian roads and retrofitting these could potentially be an enormous opportunity. However, running petrol powered engines on battery is technically complex (akin to a heart transplant)) and there is no government subsidy on retrofitted electric vehicles. As a result, many start-ups retrofit service providers (primarily for commercial vehicles) have pivoted to manufacturing new electric vehicles.
Can retro fitment work in two wheelers? Ravi and I have an exciting conversation about the following: