Green Drive

Harshin Lalpet

The Indian public mode of transportation is a cost-effective option. How about something even reasonable? And also private? Harshin Lalpet and team are working on building electric scooter to serve multiple purposes

Tell me something about the green vehicle your company is building.

We are making an electric scooter that will be ideal for commuting short distances. Say if somebody has to go to the departmental store which is 4-5 km away, the electric scooter will come handy.

That’s a short distance. Why should one buy a separate vehicle for such errands?

The electric scooter has two main purposes. One is that it saves the planet. Another is that it is cost effective. The green scooter operates on batteries that make use of electricity, which is cheaper than fossil fuel and the government also has introduced schemes that allow the rider to use the first few units for almost free. Say if you ride an e-scooter for 40 km, it will cost you some Rs 10. Whereas a regular scooter will cost your Rs 110.  

And will your short distance e-scooter look like a regular scooter with a pillion rider accommodation?

It will look similar to a moped. Yes, there is space for somebody besides the rider to sit on the scooter.

What inspired you to venture into electric automobiles?

I was always an automobile guy. And I used to travel a lot within the country in my younger days. During those days I realized that we exhaust a lot of fuel and also money. EV (electric vehicle), therefore, was the thing I had to pay attention to.

I was reading up an Elon Musk’s interview. He said that e-scooters are dangerous and that is why tesla would never venture into that area. Do you want to say something here?

He said it in the American context. The design of the scooter there is different from ours. And they run at a speed which can be dangerous. Whereas the Indian scooter is much different. And it fits into the Indian traffic speed.

Also, Musk said that to produce the electric vehicle the biggest challenge that Tesla faces is that of procuring the raw material. Do you also share the same challenge?

Well, Musk is talking of vehicle production at a high scale. What I do at Vaanr Tech is of a much smaller scale. We plan to build about 10 electric scooters this year. If everything goes well, we could expand the number.