Electric Motorcycles India: Ultraviolette CEO Narayan on Vision, Early Decisions & Scaling Challenges

“The electric vehicle revolution is not just about replacing petrol, it’s about completely redefining what a motorcycle can do.” This was quoted by the CEO of Ultraviolette Automotive, Narayan in a recent interview with ETAuto.

He also described the origin of the company and why it was formed. He also remembered the old days with his Co-Founder Niraj Rajmohan experimenting with lithium batteries for college robotics in 2007. Narayan also shared how following Tesla’s footsteps inspired them to return to India in 2015 in order to lay a foundation for Ultraviolette.

Ultraviolette Strategy 

Discussing their early decisions that shaped the company and its electric lineup of two-wheelers, Narayan stated that they initially wanted to launch four-wheelers but quickly exited due to lack of hardware funding in India at the time. Instead of making affordable two-wheelers, they applied a Tesla-style strategy. 

He further expressed that, “We saw merit in going top-down.. We wanted to build the entire foundational tech,” After doing eight years of deep R&D, they developed their technology from scratch. 

This led to big advancements in 400V battery architecture on their F99 racing platform, which was a big transition from modular packs to a fixed-battery setup that provides seamless 300 Km of range.

Scaling for India 

He also addressed the challenges of building and scaling for India & the world. Narayan admitted that India’s two-wheeler ecosystem needs rugged versatility, which is completely different from China’s low-powered micro-mobility approach. 

This is because Indian bikes and scooters are put through heavy daily abuse and for that any new EV has to completely beat ICE engine’s reliability and power to gain trust in the market. Initially, they also dealt with limited capital against legacy manufacturers. 

Narayan stated that The Ultraviolette implemented a “Scrappy” culture. One of the biggest tech challenges they faced was developing industry-first radars and ADAS specifically for two-wheelers. 

Thus they have built a global product. Overall, Narayan’s vision is not just a success story, but it's about engineering an electric motorcycle that has redefined electric mobility and commands respect whether it's parked in Bengaluru, London or Paris.