Startup Saturday: passion drives future-ready e-bikes for Pune-based Kapil Shelke - Hindustan Times
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Startup Saturday: passion drives future-ready e-bikes for Pune-based Kapil Shelke

Hindustan Times, Pune | ByNamita Sibad
Mar 02, 2019 04:51 PM IST

Electric motorcycles with zero carbon push, run 100 kilometres for as little as ₹28

We’ve all heard of electric cars, buses, scooters but electric motorbikes is not much heard of? The essential difference being that an electric motorbike will consume more energy than a scooter.

Kapil Shelke, a mechanical engineer from Pune.(HT/PHOTO)
Kapil Shelke, a mechanical engineer from Pune.(HT/PHOTO)

Kapil Shelke, a mechanical engineer from Pune university’s love for electric motorbikes was so deep that he felt that if the environment benefit is being extended to scooter then why not for motorbikes?

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Shelke knew that vehicles running on fossil fuels were 30 to 37 percent fuel efficient.

With the future belonging to electric vehicles, Shelke decided that he would build an electric motorcycle but there was a serious problem. “The electric vehicle is a very efficient but storage of energy is the problem. The capacity of battery where battery is stored is the limitation.”

The next problem that Shelke faced was the distance covered by the electric motorbike.

“If the capacity of energy storage is less then the distance an electric motorike will go will also be less. This meant that the electric motorbike I design would be sufficient for city use only. Generally a person in a city will not travel more than 50 to 60 kilometres,” he said. With this understanding, Shelke knew what he wanted to do.

He decided that he would build an electric motorbike that would go for 100 to 150 kilometres on a single charge.

Building an electric motorbike that is 30% faster and goes at 100 kilometres on a single charge at the price point close to an premium motorcycle was what he got right. “My electric motorbike goes faster for longer distances and people were not expecting such a thing could happen. We took up the challenge and people are buying it now,” he said. 

HOW DID ‘TORK’ HAPPEN?

“I have always been in love with motorbikes. While at college, I started work on an electric motorbike. I built the first prototype in 2009 and took it for the Isle of Man race. There were 16 competitors from across the globe and we emerged third. The winner covered a specific distance in 24 minutes and my electric motorbike covered the same distance in 36 minutes. That was very encouraging for me to get my electric motorbike be a second runner up in an international race,” he said.

Shelke said that usually racing is more about the technology than about the race itself.

“At the contest I saw the technologies, the equipment, in use globally. When you take part in such competitions, you realize where you are lacking. Of course, they were doing it with millions of dollars and I realized that I lacked the money to build such an electric motorbike.”

Though Kapil didn’t have the money that the international competitors had, he had a very good understanding of what was required. “I didn’t have the money to put together a good team of engineers, but I had the understanding and the time. Perhaps I could not build all the components but it was possible to buy things like motors, controllers etc off the shelf and integrate it. Some of the techniques we learnt and developed in house, like battery management system, motors , battery packs, controllers etc.

The most critical element of an electric motorbike, the battery management system, Kapil built in-house. “It is the most critical feature of an electric motorbike. It is a computer on which the battery sits and controls its functioning. It will allow it to operate between certain voltages so that it doesn’t not heat up,” he said.

Shelke had done a bit of coding himself in his earlier years and had spoken to different engineers from India as well as the UK who helped him with this. Now, he is focusing on building the motor in-house along with the battery pack, where he has to manage to keep the battery thermally cool and in a tight box, so that “there is more energy per square inch. This is an engineering challenge.”

Kapil reveals that his electric motorbike has a torque of 27Nm and has cloud tech to capture data for predictive maintenance.

Kapil established the company - Tork - in 2010 as he needed a legal entity to get sponsors for the race. In the interim years, he has worked in many companies, including one e-bike company called Zongshen in China. In 2016, after first round of funding, he began work.

In 2016, Shelke met Bhavish Agarwal, the chief executive officer of Ola who liked his idea. Agarwal gave Shelke 3.5 crore to build a prototype for commercial production and a good team. Shelke developed the commercial prototype in a year.

Then Shelke met Amit Kalyani of Bharat Forge who saw the potential of his electric motorbike. He invested 30 crores as a pre-series investment and Shelke is busy running behind his fixed goals.

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