Bengaluru-headquartered scooter rental startup, Bounce on August 10, 2021, said it had joined hands with deep-tech startup Chara for local production of electric motors for its fleet of electric vehicles (EVs).
The Urban mobility solutions provider has begun replacing its fleet of 30,000 petrol-driven scooters with electric scooters. The company has decided that rather than buy the vehicles, it would make them in-house, its Co-Founder, H R Vivekananda, said.
Founded in November 2019 by Bhaktha Keshavachar, Ravi Prasad Sharma, and Mahalingam Koushik, Chara is a deep-tech startup developing a scalable, cloud-controlled, and rare-earth free platform for designing, building, and deploying electric motors for various applications.
Under the partnership, the deep-tech startup will design and manufacture customized motors based on Bounce’s innovative motor and drive technologies. The motors will be based on its technology that is rare-earth magnet-free, hyper-efficient, easier and cost-effective to build.
Chara’s motors are made with locally sourced, sustainable raw materials, reducing their cost by up to 40 percent. Chara founder and CEO Bhaktha Keshavachar said that the partnership with Bounce is a testament to its ability to partner with innovative companies striving towards a common goal of a sustainable future.
“It is necessary to invest in deep-tech to build technologies that can help us move towards sustainability in the long term and also help us as a country to play a more significant role in the electric transformation than to just remain as consumers,” Keshavachar added.
This development is part of Bounce’s strategy to develop its owned fleet of EVs deployed for mobility solutions. With the localization of the core component of the EV, Bounce will save a sizeable amount on imports, the company said.
Currently, motors and associated controllers used in EVs are majorly imported. Bounce co-founder Vivekananda H R said, “We are excited to partner with Chara to source locally produced rare-earth magnet-free electric motors, which will go a long way in maintaining cost efficiencies.”
The company statement said that the motors, custom designed by Chara for Bounce, will be locally manufactured and deployed in Bounce’s fleet at the beginning of next year.
