By Team PluginIndia

Cellestial E-Mobility, a Hyderabad based startup has rolled out its first prototype electric tractor. This tractor is economical to operate, as powerful as a diesel tractor,
while consuming less energy. With features like with features like battery swapping, regenerative braking, AC charging, battery that can act as a UPS, this product will be very beneficial to the agriculture industry. The best part the electric tractor will be cheaper than equivalent diesel tractors.

We spoke to Mr Syed Mubasheer , founder of Cellestial E-Mobility and asked him some questions on this very interesting product.

By Amit Gupta  & Raphae Halim

Let's take a look at the electric vehicle stories that are trending in February 2020. Amit and Raphae speak about demystifying availability of Lithium, they mention the serious and not so serious EV showcases at the Auto Expo. We examine the Ather 450X pricing controversy and look at the twitter happenings.
Finally we also look at some community contributors in the EV world!

By Strom Motors

Strom Motors an EV start up based out of India is all set to launch Strom-R3, a reverse trike all electric urban mobility solution. Strom-R3 is the first reverse trike vehicle to receive homologation certification in India. Strom Motors was the winner of the coveted Spirit of Manufacturing Award at TiECON Global Summit held in November 2019 at New Delhi, India. Strom-R3 has received widespread recognition including as a top 10 startups by Government of India in early 2018 and by Economic Times.

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.

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 Prof Nagendra Singh Tiwari​

Mahindra Electric Mobility Ltd, part of the USD 20.7 billion Mahindra Group, and SmartE, India’s largest electric vehicle fleet operator, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to drive electric mobility forward in India. 

By IDTechEx Team

Whilst diesel and gasoline-powered vessels currently dominate maritime transportation, the market for pure electric and hybrid boats and ships is growing rapidly.
​IDTechEx Technology Analyst, Luke Gear, has published the below article on his new report on electric and hybrid boats and ships.

By Kamlesh Mallick

This week, Elon Musk showcased a concept tunnel that could revolutionize urban transport.
The big takeaway from this proof of concept, is that only Electric Vehicles with autonomous hardware/software installed can use this infrastructure. No ICE vehicles allowed!