Tork Motorcycles to launch India’s first electric motorcycle in 2017

With 400,000 bookings, Tesla’s upcoming and ‘affordable’ Model 3 has shown that electric mobility is gradually drawing mass-market buyers. In the automobile world as also elsewhere, start-ups are looking to make electric transportation cool, practical and as affordable as conventional ones. Like the Bangalore-based Ather Energy which is working on an electric scooter, Tork Motorcycles is working on an electric motorcycle.  

Tork Motorcycles, an Indian company, is hoping to create a similar disruption in the field of electric motorcycles. A recent round of investment has given a big boost to its plans to launch its first production electric motorcycle – the T6X. 

Racing aficionados would be familiar with Tork Motorcycles, or Tork India as it was known before. Founded by Kapil Shelke, a mechanical engineer by trade and racer by passion, Tork made waves when it scored a podium finish in its debut attempt at the TTXGP (the Electric TT race at the Isle of Man) in 2009. Since then, Kapil and his team have been making and constantly upgrading electric racing motorcycles for TTXGP and TT-ZERO races, and have even converted a Yamaha FZ16 to run on an electric motor and batteries as a proof of concept for a road-going electric motorcycle.

Recently, this Pune-based company raised funds from angel investors including the founders of Ola cabs Bhavish Agarwal and Ankit Bhati, along with a group of angels led by Harpreet Grover, co-founder & CEO of CoCubes, to build electric motorcycles in India.

T6X: future of Indian electric motorcycling

After building five successful prototypes so far, Tork Motorcycles is looking to build its sixth bike and first mass-market electric motorcycle in the form of the T6X. While no technical specifications have been released at present, Tork says that this is being developed as a serious electric option to petrol-engined motorcycles. And the bike certainly looks the part. Kapil even mentioned the design was very critical for them as they wanted their bike to look like a “proper motorcycle” rather than a quirky e-bike.

The T6X is designed to fit right into the lives of the modern-day riders, with features like GPS, storage, cloud connectivity as well as phone charging. On a technical front, the bike will also features an IP over battery management system, control systems, motor tuning, drive train and overall product integration for over the air control on all aspects of the motorcycle. Currently, the T6X is undergoing rigorous testing and certification procedures, and the company plans to have a fully working prototype ready by the end of this year. The production ready version of the T6X is slated to be launched early next year.

Tork Motorcycles couldn’t have chosen a better time to kick-start the project as rising public concern over the pollution caused by internal combustion-powered vehicles has brought in various government initiatives such as NEMMP 2020 (National Electric Mobility Plan) and FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India) to boost innovation and interest in electric vehicles in the country. “Electric vehicles are the future. Drop in battery prices, rising sensitivity around emissions and government’s focus on the sector will fuel demand in India,” added Harpreet Grover, co-founder and CEO, Cocubes.

There is expected to be a demand of about 1.3 million electric two-wheelers by 2020-21 and Tork Motorcycles seems to be poised just right to not just take advantage of this situation, but to be a driving force in it as well.