With numerous electric vehicle (EV) startups developing battery-operated motorcycles across various segments, Royal Enfield said it is going the extra mile when it comes to testing, developing, and validating its range of electric two-wheeler (E2W) products.
Royal Enfield CEO B. Govindarajan said the company has already made “steady progress” in the development of its maiden e-motorcycle, and it is currently collaborating with battery manufacturers, system integrators, and other suppliers to come out with “uniquely differentiated electric motorcycles” with a “strong Royal Enfield DNA”.
“Our initial focus has been to build up a very capable team which we have been commissioning and all the members are coming together and working with full energy. We have started deep investments and are committing ourselves in the areas of product development, infrastructure, testing, and development (of electric motorcycles), etc. We have laid out a strong product and technology road map and have started engaging with suppliers in the development cycle,” Govindarajan said in a conference call to discuss the March quarter results.
As per media speculation, Royal Enfield’s first electric bike will be based on its L-platform, codenamed L1C and is expected by 2025. The upcoming zero emission vehicles are being led by the bike maker’s CTO for EV, Umesh Krishnappa, who has previously worked with Ola Electric, where he was Sr. Vice President and Head of Vehicle Engineering & Technology and Manufacturing Engineering.
Last year, Royal Enfield made a strategic investment of €50 million in Stark Future, a Barcelona-based startup.
“Both teams are now seamlessly working together to collaborate to learn from each other and trying to see what all development can be done. And we are in the final stages of concluding the nuances and nitty-gritties,” added Govindarajan.
Meanwhile, Govindarajan did acknowledge that the technology that underpins EVs is “fast changing”, and Royal Enfield has to decide at what point of time the product which it is making, or the technology which it is bringing in, will become “obsolescent”.
“What we are looking at is agility, modularity, co-creation, and concurrent engineering. There's an enormous focus on simulation rather than on design work and then simulation. The whole new product development (NPD) process is keeping a sort of a modularity in such a way that even at a later point of time when technology changes, it can get adapted. So that happens only with the co-creation and the concurrent engineering with the vendor base,” said the CEO of Classic and Meteor middleweight bikemaker.
Govindarajan said the new electric Royal Enfields will be rolled out from the company’s Vallam Vadagal plant on the outskirts of Chennai in the initial phase and will shift to a new plant in Cheyyar, once it is ready by 2025.
“We are currently working on blocking capacities with suppliers, working with them to figure out our requirements and developing our product. We will think of what capacity we put up at a later stage," added Govindarajan.
Talking about the technological alliances, Govindarajan stated that it is actively collaborating with domain specialists of motors, controllers, Battery Management Systems (BMS), cell chemistries, etc., in order to be “future ready’.
“We are working with battery chemistry specialists on how the motor is actually coming up on the electronics to see what will happen in the next few years, and what is that we have to plug in when we are doing a design at this stage. That's an agility which we wanted to bring in to our entire system. And it is working well. And we can see some good successes as of now,” said Govindarajan.
Meanwhile, Royal Enfield is drawing a blueprint to strengthen its international presence, including setting up assembly operations in Nepal and Bangladesh, to expand its global footprint. The company has crossed the 100,000-sale milestone in exports in FY22-23 and has started a completely-knocked-down plant in Brazil, taking its total number of CKD operations internationally to four units.
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