InnerCircle: EV performance should be close to ICE, says Orxa's Ranjita Ravi

“We started Orxa because we wanted to build a bike that we wanted to ride. We realised that there was no product in the market that we could just buy," she said.

By Radhika Dave

10 Apr 2024

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InnerCircle: EV performance should be close to ICE, says Orxa's Ranjita Ravi

Ranjita Ravi, Co-founder of Orxa Energies — the maker of the flagship product Mantis e-bikes talks about how the 200-500 cc space in the motorcycle segment has seen a consistent increase.

Talking at the Inner Circle Bengaluru event hosted by Autodesk and Autocar Professional, she said that the Mantis looks at the 200-500cc space and "This is a space that has been growing year on year for the last 7-8 years. What was at 3% of market by volume in 2015-16 and is now at 8-8.5%.

"This is a function of a very young, aspirational India, where we have a lot of disposable income," she noted.

On the inspiration to start Orxa, she says: “We started Orxa because we wanted to build a bike that we wanted to ride. We realised that there was no product in the market that we could just buy.” After spending a decade and a half in Europe, Ravi returned to India. “We started off making motorcycles and moved into aerospace and defense and that is how we ‘validated our EV tech.’

"This has helped us make our tech robust. Passion project needs tech that is solid", she says. At Orxa, cross industry skills help, she said. Explaining the shift to EVs, Ranjita is of the opinion that people are not going to move to electric unless you give a product equal in performance to their ICE product. A scooter consumer in a big city is going to be an early adopter of tech. He will consider that EV
for an EV.

“In the India market, 2/3 rd s of the two wheelers are motorcycles. Only one third is scooters. And of this, two third , that is motorcycles, people are not going to move to electric, unless you give them a product that is equal in performance to an existing vehicle.

A motorcycle user is using that motorcycle for a purpose. It has to serve that utility whether it is leisure, or sport or functional. To woo motorcycle users to EV, companies have to make it equal in performance and pricing also. She said that the Mantis will be priced as close as possible to the KTM Duke.

In terms of leveraging technology, the core principle at Orxa is simulations. Use metal, plastic 3D Printing. We prototype very fast. “It might seem that we have been at motorcycles for a very long time, but we’ve been through a lot of iterations, purely on first principles, and a lot of it is focused on getting this bike as light as possible. We are at 180 kgs.” No motorcycle in this segment (200-500 cc) in India or internationally is at 180 kgs, she said.