Creatara Mobility Team Says They Want To Build The Right EV First And Don’t Want To Rush It To Market
New Delhi:
In a small room at the Indian Institute of Technology’s massive innovation center in Delhi, a group of young engineers work quietly at separate desks, tinkering and fine-tuning sections of a new electric scooter featuring a variety of engineers. expertise is required. One is working on functional properties and aesthetics using technical drawing software, the other is staring at a circuit board using a magnifying glass. The rest are busy too – there are chassis specialists, there are battery design specialists, there are software specialists. They all have the same goal – to build from scratch the safest electric scooter that’s also as fun to ride as a motorcycle.
But Creatara Mobility, a bootstrapped venture started by two engineers, is nowhere on the map amid tough funding times made even tougher by the pandemic.
In 2018, Vikas Gupta, co-founder of Creatara Mobility along with Ringlarei Pamei, said, “The biggest problem we are facing as a startup is not having enough funds. We are entering a capital-intensive business and We’re building a complex product from scratch.” told NDTV in his one-room company inside the massive IIT incubation centre. Both are alumni of IIT-Delhi.
“We don’t have any PR. We’re not making fancy noises. There’s only hard research and development going on, and that’s where things get tough because it takes time to build a good electric scooter that’s supported by a solid foundation.” Safest battery to be used in Indian conditions,” said Mr. Gupta.
Ringleri Pamei, co-founder of Creatara Mobility, at her workstation at the IIT-incubated startup’s office
making a safe electric scooter
Creatara Mobility doesn’t want to announce just another electric vehicle (EV), Mr. Gupta said, adding that big companies can easily cobble together some plastic and questionable metal parts around a battery. sticks it on and calls it an electric scooter in the race. Somehow entered the market without much attention to safety, as evidenced by incidents of batteries catching fire and suspension breakdowns.
“We are in the testing phase and have made a few prototypes. We are looking at a timeline of six months to launch the scooter after certification in limited batch production,” Mr Vikas said, adding the point is not Market like everyone else but build a good product first.
Certain features of Creatara Mobility’s electric scooter take it very close to the performance and handling characteristics of a regular motorcycle. “A lot of work has gone into the suspension and chassis design and people who know the bike will instantly love it,” said Mr. Pamey, a mechanical engineer and a biker himself, who is the brain behind the overall structural design of the scooter.
He did not provide further details on key aspects of the design, citing trade secrets.
A prototype of Creatara Mobility’s electric scooter stripped of most of its parts. The tires are much bigger than those used in the average electric scooter and the suspension is of the high-performance type
R&D comes first
However, the suspension angle can be easily changed and fine-tuned by the customers to suit their riding style. A large part of the scooter can be customised, whereas a regular mass-market electric scooter can only customize one or two areas. The battery pack comes in a variety of sizes and can be swapped out on the go – from using for neighborhood errand rides to long-distance cruises.
“We will research, product, give the safest battery. But someone has to make it and we are looking for manufacturers,” Mr Gupta said.
Co-Founder, Mr. Pamei said that building a well-built, complex product from scratch and backed by good R&D in India is not an easy task. “If we wanted to, we could jump into the market with any kind of electric scooter like everyone else,” Pamei said.
Creatara Mobility is developing in-house software and hardware interfaces to integrate with the scooter from the concept stage
Advanced Incubation Center
Mr Gupta and his team are using an industrial grade laboratory at IIT-Delhi’s Center for Automotive Research and Tribology (CART) to run tests on the prototype. The lab is located in the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) building, which is also supported by the government’s Department of Science and Technology.
Creatara Mobility won the Altair Start-up Challenge in April last year for its innovative work on structural components and key systems during the early product design and development stages. The startup is now backed by two angel investors, Sunnycorn and NK Securities, for an undisclosed amount.