By Abhishek Uchil

​PluginIndia recently took a trip to Hyderabad, the city of nawabs and of high technology. In fact, our hotel was in an area synonymous with the latter – Hitec City! That’s where we found ourselves, bleary-eyed after a long overnight bus ride that had brought us into Hyderabad from Bangalore. But we had little time to laze about in our hotel rooms because we had to go check out e-Trio, the only Indian company offering ARAI-certified electric vehicle (EV) conversion kits for your car!

By Kamlesh Mallick

So we got an email from the PureEV team last month, inviting PluginIndia to visit their factory and meet their battery engineering team in Hyderabad. We have heard a lot about the company and by looking at their website, we see some some cool looking electric two wheeler products. The fact that they make their own battery packs and also are working on algorithms, software to improve their battery, meant that this trip to Hyderabad was a no brainer.

By Atul Gopal

I was invited by the Pune International Centre (PIC) to attend a lecture on the topic, 'New Mobility'. The lecture was be delivered by Mr. Anup Sable - Chief Technology Officer (CTO), KPIT Technologies. Here is my writeup on the lecture, where Anup spoke about the disruption happening in the automobile sector.

By Atul Gopal, with inputs from Kamlesh Mallick

What happens when a cell phone guy becomes a motorcycle maker? One imagines that the Micromax guys would have done what they usually do - concentrate on sales, source from China. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Revolt does not do that. The import content is under 40%, so it qualifies for the Make in India incentives.
What I liked is the attention to detail and some interesting insights about the millennial bike rider. The analogy was to what Sony had to go through when it developed the Walkman. One thing that Rahul is clear about: the target customer - Young Urban Males, which could include the Swiggy delivery guy.

​Tork Motors gears up for launch with the installation of their first EV fast-charging station. With the launch of its first charging station, in Pune, India TORK Motors supports the government's vision of promoting e-mobility in India. ​TORK charging stations are 100% compliant to the standardized Bharat EV Specifications and can support any electric vehicle in the city that features a GB/T plug.

So Hero Electric, the largest company in terms of electric scooter sales, have recently updated their scooter lineup to comply with FAME 2 requirements.
We visited the dealership in Cinchwad, Pune and took the scooter on a spin. In this blog, we highlight our observations in real time as we rode the Hero Electric Photon. ​

By Raphae Halim

Affordable Electric Vans are important to enable small businesses move cargo across the city or for small distances. The Diesel cargo vans used by small businesses nowadays are noisy, emit PM 2.5 pollution and should be electrified ASAP to reduce emissions and reduce our use of imported oil.  So we reached out to Kinetic Green, makers of electric cargo vans, asking them to show us their product which could benefit small businesses. They showed us the Kinetic Green, Safar Shakti Star, which we took on a spin.

By Team PluginIndia
​The Okinawa Ridge+ electric scooter by Gurgaon based Okinawa Scooters, was the company's first product with Lithium-Ion batteries.
We recently had an opportunity to test drive the Ridge+ and give our opinions in our Lets Ride video.  Here are more observations and comments.

By Team PluginIndia

So there was a reveal event by Revolt Motors which showcased the new series of electric motorcycles.
They introduced 3 flavours of the motorcycle RV300, RV400 and RV400 Premium.
​The most revolutionary part of the announcement was that there was no MRP (Max Retail Price) ​announced!

By Raphae Halim

We got an opportunity to ride the ​Ampere Zeal Electric Scooter, which is the latest scooter launched by 10+ year old EV company Ampere Vehicles.
The dealer in Cinchwad, Pune invited us to take a look at it.  In this blog, we highlight our observations in real time as we rode the Zeal.

By Kamlesh Mallick

The PluginIndia team felt the full blast of the Indian EV transformation during our recent trip to Delhi/NCR, which is the region where we observe huge investment in the EV space and maximum disruption caused by electric vehicles.
We saw electric Rickshaws everywhere, including from organized players like Smart-E.  We travelled across NCR in an electric taxi by a startup called Blu Smart. We then were invited by the Hyundai team for the launch of first All-Electric SUV in India - The Hyundai Kona.
We then also visited a user who has installed a 5 kW solar power system at his home and charges his electric car using Solar!

By Kamlesh Mallick with inputs from industry

So the 2019 budget was presented by our finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and electric mobility was the major winner.
There are income tax breaks for consumers, there are lower import duties on components for manufacturers and less GST than before.
All this shows the commitment of our government towards green mobility in India.

By Kamlesh Mallick

Let's all welcome a new electric car to the Indian EV market. Hyundai are launching India's first electric SUV on July 9, 2019.
No this is not a gossip news item that you read in auto blogs or websites these days about EV's. This is a real launch, where the car will be made  available for individual and commercial customers in India. We have been in touch with the nice people in Hyundai over the year talking about the car, the team etc. They don't reveal much, but here are important points to consider if you are interested in the Hyundai Kona Electric SUV.

by Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx

Not long ago it was just dreams. Small internal-combustion aircraft provide taxi services, serve the declining market for private flying and a few other needs. Some are over 30 years old because total cost of ownership is an issue. Designing electric replacements seemed like entering a dust bowl. Spotting that there is more money in larger aircraft, some raised investment to jump in at the deep end and make 8-100 seat pure-electric aircraft or, more realistically, hybrid interim versions first, such as the Faradair BEHA. It is well analysed in the new IDTechEx report, "Manned Electric Aircraft 2020-2030".

Orxa Energies's Mission is to Rapidly Electrify All Transport​. To do that they are working on made in India, modular battery packs. They are also working on an electric motorcycle to be released in 2019. 
Let's chat with the co-founder of Orxa Energies, Ranjita Ravi to find out more.