Following is the list of top 10 made-in-India electric two-wheeler companies, in India
note: the company’s position on the list isn’t necessarily a reflection of how good they are or how valuable they are.
Top 10 made-in-India electric two-wheeler companies
#1 Ola Electric
Bengaluru-based electric two-wheeler startup OIa Electric. Now, Ola made its official entry into the EV industry with Ola Electric in 2017, but it wasn’t until 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that the importance of this new business line became clear to Ola Electric’s founder, Bhavish Aggarwal.
Ola’s ride-hailing business was struggling, and so in May of 2020, Ola Electric bought Amsterdam-based electric scooter startup Etergo, the makers of a Dutch electric two-wheeler called the AppScooter. Now, at that time nobody realized just how big Ola Electric was thinking with this acquisition, but by March of 2021, they had announced their plans to build the world’s largest electric two-wheeler manufacturing facility, the Ola Electric Future factory in Tamil Nadu.
This set the company on a clear path to becoming one of the market leaders in India’s electric two-wheeler space. Once their Future Factory is fully operational, it’ll employ over 10,000 women, and one electric scooter will be completed every 2 seconds! Now, with such a massive facility with upwards of 3,000 robots and 10 production lines, it makes sense that a lot of these vehicles are being made in India – according to the company’s website, 90% of the scooter’s parts are localized, and near the factory.
But there are still things that Ola is getting from outside of India, namely its batteries which are made by Korea’s LG Chem according to BikeDekho. However, vehicles like the GM Chevy Bolt and Hyundai’s Kona have faced global recalls because of the risk of fire associated with LG Chem’s recent production of battery cells, and it’s possible that Ola Electric was impacted by this as well when one of their scooters caught fire in Pune earlier in 2022. 
They are now working on establishing a cell manufacturing plant here in India, and for this, they plan to partner with a global battery manufacturer, although as of June of 2022 it wasn’t clear if Ola Electric had signed an agreement with anyone company just yet. and this new factory is likely gonna be about double the size of the future factory,
so they’re gonna need a lot of venture capital to continue with their ambitious plans, which also include an electric car sometime in 2023 or 2024. For this, their investors have poured $861.2 million into the company at a valuation of $5 billion as of February 2022.
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#2 Ather Energy
In the list of top electric two-wheeler startups in India, the Bengaluru-based electric scooter startup Ather Energy is ranked at #2nd position. Started by two IITians, Swapnil Jain and Tarun Mehta, Ather is arguably the crown jewel of India’s EV startup ecosystem.
They were able to prove that with a great idea, some venture capital, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, a startup could build a world-class electric vehicle in India.
Now back in 2013 when Ather started at IIT Madras, the company was strictly a battery manufacturer.
According to Swapnil, “We said that we will make batteries only for existing vehicles as there is no lithium-ion battery pack in the market. We will manufacture them and sell them. We thought that batteries were the only thing in electric vehicles.”
Eventually, though, they got smart and realized there was a gap in India’s electric two-wheeler space – a gap that the Ather could fill with a premium, smart, aspirational electric scooter that consumers would be proud of to own.
They began building 55 prototypes, which were financed by the startup’s investors and evolved into the Ather S340, which they sold directly to consumers, but it was still dipping their toes into the EV market. Where he made an impact was with the 450 Plus and 450X, the hugely impressive scooter duo that Ather is known for today.
90% of these scooters including battery packs are made here in India, and the company has 2 manufacturing facilities in Hosur, Tamil Nadu with an annual capacity of 400,000 units.
Now, to build this facility, Ather needed venture capital, and so far they have raised a total of $286.8 million. Now they’re not a unicorn yet, but that’s going to change soon shortly as things are going well for them – in May 2022 they recorded their highest ever sales, 3,787 units, and they’re a unicorn. Also working on a new, more powerful version of their 450 series to compete with the next company on this list:
#3 Ultraviolette Automotive
Bengaluru-based electric motorcycle startup Ultraviolette. The story of the startup begins when its founders Narayan Subramaniam and Neeraj Rajmohan were 10 years old.
They competed a lot, and this healthy competition stuck with them in their teens when they both attended the same college and won prizes together in creative engineering competitions.
These creative experiences would come in handy later in 2014 when they came together to start a two-wheeler company: Ultraviolette Automotive.
its first motorcycle, the F77, has already received over 60,000 pre-orders from around the world and is expected to go on sale in 2022, although there have been several delays since 2020.
Although that being said, the company now has a manufacturing facility, which is important because the F77 is a custom-built electric motorbike, it is not something they copied from elsewhere, the F77 is “designed and Indigenously manufactured and over 90% of the vehicle including the battery pack will be manufactured using locally procured components.
However, none of this would have been possible without their investors, who have poured upwards of $19.8 million into startups for an estimated $200 million as of December 2021, according to Inc42.
#4 Simple Energy
Bengaluru-based electric scooter startup Simple Energy. The company was started by Suhas Rajkumar, who had already tried and failed to launch 3 startups before deciding to build value-for-money EVs in January of 2019.
Realizing how big a task this was going to be, they asked their friend Shrestha Mishra to join them as co-founders, and together, they began designing the Simple Energy Mark 1, which was very It was a challenging process.
In fact, for the core team of employees who believed in Suhas’ vision, many were not paid for the first year or more of the venture’s journey.
They used Suhas’s parents’ garage as an office, and the company was saved with money from the core team members. they incorporated the startup in September of 2019 when he secured angel funding from an undisclosed source, and the journey hasn’t been an easy one.
company’s Electric scooters look great, it is made in India and the startup is targeting 99% localization at launch, with only battery cells coming from outside India, but the challenges of adopting an indigenous approach have delayed the startup. It is lying Repeated sales of these scooters – but there is arguably a silver lining to these delays, and that is how Simple Energy has been able to avoid the controversy faced by startups like Ola Electric, Ather, Okinawa, Jitendra, and Pure EV when their electric scooter was caught fire.
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So hopefully they’re able to learn from the mistakes of these incumbents – they’ve partnered with US-based battery-tech company C4V to set up a lithium-ion cell manufacturing ecosystem in India sometime in the future. so it Eventually has More control over its batteries than some of the other competitors, which import battery cells, and their investors are also onboard with the plan, have poured upwards of $21.9 million into the company and, according to Suhas, valued the startup was $200 million as of March 2022.
#5 Orxa Energy
In the list of top electric two-wheeler startups in India, 5th on the list is Orxa Energy, a Bengaluru-based high-performance electric motorcycle manufacturing startup.
When entrepreneurs Prajwal Sabnis and Ranjita Ravi started their company in 2015, they wanted to create something different. They could see that the electric scooter space was about to become overcrowded, so they focused on high-performance electric motorcycles instead.
Orxa Energies revealed its first flagship product, the Mantis, in December of 2019, and while it’s still in the testing phase, it’s already breaking records: it covered 13,510 km in 54 days – this test was done as a way for a motorcycle in all kinds of conditions, and it’s practical approach defines the startup.
They only hire people who understand biking, and their vehicles are built by and for these people. The entire Mantis is made in India, from the design to the actual build and assembling of the parts – the only non-Indian thing in these bikes are the battery cells that come from manufacturers in South Korea and Japan, and it makes all the difference.
Especially notable when you consider that the company’s first two and a half years of operations were completely bootstrapped, after which they raised a small $1.2 million round, and they may have raised more since then.
#6 ElecTorq
In the list of top electric two-wheeler startups in India, 5th on the list is ElecTorq, a Delhi-based micro-mobility startup ElecTorq Technologies, and what is unique about this startup is the full-stack approach that the company’s founders have adopted. Micro-mobility offering for gig workers.
They have battery swapping stations, they have an app so their users can find scooters and batteries, and of course, they have the hardware itself, the scooter, and that’s really where the ElecTorq shines.
Because their electric scooters, which are made at their Faridabad-based factory, need to be driven seamlessly 24 by 7 by delivery drivers in all kinds of Indian conditions, the ElecTorq scooters are custom-built for Indian roads – “It is a robust product. It has no plastic components that can break and is designed to go 120km per day without hurting the backs of delivery drivers. ,
Now, the interesting part of ElecTorq is its business model, as they don’t rent scooters directly to drivers. Instead, they sell these scooters to rental partners at a margin of around 20%, along with fleet management tools that they have designed in-house, and then these rental partners are the ones who rent them out to delivery drivers. give.
Then, the other half of ElecTorq’s revenue comes from the kilometer-based fee they charge delivery drivers on battery swaps.
So by combining these two sources of revenue, ElecTorq has managed to become “a profitable company on a per km basis”, meaning they do not need to focus on survival, and “focus on product development and refinement”. focused” and their investors are helping them do that. So far the startup has raised $2.3 million.
#7 Atumobile
In the list of top electric two-wheeler startups in India, the Hyderabad-based electric bike startup Atumobile is in the 7th position.
the company is taking a very sustainable approach to their business — they’re bootstrapped, and they’re taking a slow and steady approach.
The company’s founder and CEO, Vamsi Gaddam, said in an interview with The Economic Times that “I have a traditional thought process and I want to show what I can build before I sit down to discuss with investors. Don’t want to sit in a discussion where someone offers Rs 50 crore for 25 percent of the company. This is not my mindset.”
This is the reason why Atumobile did not start its company by making big promises. Their first vehicle, the Atom 1.0, despite looking like a bike only has a top speed of 25 kph – but it’s essentially an MVP for them, a minimum viable product, and they plan to follow that. With a 50 km/ph variant, the Atum 1.0, and an even faster version, India’s first high-speed electric cafe racer, the AtumVader, has already been ARAI certified and is powered by 90% indigenously sourced components. the electric bike will be manufactured in Their two Telangana-based manufacturing facilities.
#8 InGO Electric
In the list of top electric two-wheeler startups in India, Bengaluru-based micro-mobility startup InGO Electric is ranked on 8th position.
The startup was founded in 2018 by Nikhil Gonsalves and is the top indigenous competitor to Yulu e-bikes. And Swadeshi doesn’t mean Yulu is not Indian, as recently as July 2021 Yulu was “importing kits for its scooters from China, and Bajaj is assembling them at its factory.” – InGO scooters are designed and manufactured in India.
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“The only items imported are magnets, which will be removed soon, LCD screen crystals, and lithium cells. And InGO recently tied up with Log9 Materials, so now InGO has only Rs 60 worth of imported material on their vehicles” and Log9 will supply them with Lithium-Ion battery cells, according to Nikhil Gonsalves.
#9 Emote Electric
Emote Electric is a Coimbatore-based electric motorcycle startup, founded by Pranav Singanpally, Emote Electric was officially incorporated in 2019, but Pranav has been building the startup since 2011 when it was called Emotion Motors.
The company is building something unique: India’s first geared electric motorcycle called the Surge 10k. Why Gear in an EV? The main advantage of geared EVs is efficiency.
According to Pranav, in some situations, this increase in motor efficiency can be up to 35%. This also means that their bike’s motor can be 2.5x smaller than a gearless motor of similar performance, and this size reduction results in a price reduction as well.
Now that this motorcycle is still in development, they have not started selling these yet and there is no clear timeline as to when it will happen, but bookings are open for those who are interested in owning one.
In line with the government’s efforts to adopt clean and green modes of transport, many automakers have come up with eco-friendly vehicles known as electric vehicles. These electric cars or hybrid cars (petrol + electric) not only reduce the carbon footprint but also help in reducing running costs, as they are very cost-effective in the long run. But these cars’ technology also has some drawbacks too.
