Range Improves With Rider Control at Matter Motorcycles, Says Founder Mohal Lalbhai

Range anxiety continues to be one of the biggest hurdles to electric motorcycle adoption in India. While manufacturers routinely quote higher IDC figures, riders often struggle to replicate those numbers on the road. According to Mohal Lalbhai, founder and group CEO of Matter Motorcycles, the disconnect lies not only in technological limitations but also in how electric motorcycles are designed and ridden.

“Riders today are forced to make a choice,” Lalbhai said. “Either you get performance, or you get control, or you get a scooter. That’s why people keep going back to internal combustion engines time and time again.”

Drawing on early customer data, Lalbhai said Matter Motorcycles has seen around a 25 percent improvement in real-world range as riders spend more time with the motorcycle and settle into a consistent riding pattern. “Once riders form a rhythm with the vehicle, range improves significantly,” he said. “In some cases, customers have actually gone beyond our IDC range.”

The observation challenges the conventional EV approach, where range is treated as a fixed outcome defined largely by battery size. Matter’s view is that rider-controlled power delivery, combined with software-led electronics, plays a decisive role in determining real-world efficiency.

“What really builds confidence is giving riders the freedom to decide how the motorcycle behaves, instead of telling them how it should behave,” Lalbhai said. “When customers are given that choice, they start discovering efficiencies on their own.”

This thinking has shaped Matter’s product development over the past seven years. The company has deliberately avoided adapting scooter-derived architectures, arguing that motorcycles demand a different design philosophy. “A lot of what goes into a modern EV cannot be borrowed,” Lalbhai said. “It has to be designed and built from the ground up, because an electric motorcycle needs very different thinking.”

Electronics and software, he added, have become central to that effort. “In today’s day and age, a needle-point display is not really cutting it anymore. Electronics have to be the beating heart of the product, not an afterthought added later,” he said.

Matter says its early fleet experience supports this approach. Over the last six months, customers have clocked more than 2.1 million kilometres and around 65,000 riding hours across varied terrains and weather conditions. Lalbhai said riders have actively experimented with performance, acceleration and riding modes. “We’ve seen people push speed and acceleration, while still improving range over time,” he said.

At the same time, the model comes with trade-offs. Greater rider control also means greater variability in outcomes, particularly for first-time EV users who may prefer predictable, fixed-range behaviour. Lalbhai acknowledged that there is a learning curve. “It does take a few days for riders to understand how to use the flexibility that’s given to them,” he said. “But once they do, the benefits become clear.”

Cost remains a key driver of adoption. “India is not going electric because it sounds good,” Lalbhai said. “We’re doing it because it’s cheaper and more affordable.” If lower running costs can be paired with improving real-world range, rider-led efficiency could become a meaningful differentiator in India’s electric motorcycle market.