Latest news with #Shockwave
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Ultraviolette Shockwave design patent filed. Check out what's different
Ultraviolette Shockwave has a top speed of 120 kmph. Check Offers Ultraviolette has filed a design patent for its upcoming electric off-roader - Shockwave. The dirt bike is expected to go on sale in 2026, and now with the patent filed, the manufacturer wants to protect the design of the upcoming motorcycle. The prototype of the Shockwave was unveiled back in March, and in the design patent, it can be seen that a few changes have been made. The patent reveals that the manufacturer will forgo the extravagant fork covers and brake lever guards that were present in the concept design. Additionally, the patent illustration excludes crucial components such as the headlight, tail light, and turn signals, suggesting the possibility of a track-exclusive version or several variants under development, where there is one model that is road legal while the other one is not. What is the price of the Ultraviolette Shockwave? Ultraviolette Shockwave is priced at ₹ 1.75 lakh ex-showroom. Earlier, the prices were ₹ 1.50 lakh ex-showroom for the first 1,000 customers. The pre-bookings for the e-enduro motorcycle are already open, and deliveries are slated to begin in the first quarter of 2026. Ultraviolette Shockwave has a claimed IDC range of 165 km. What are the specifications of the Ultraviolette Shockwave? The latest Shockwave is equipped with a 14.5 bhp electric motor that delivers a peak torque of 505 Nm at the wheel. According to UV, it can reach a maximum speed of 120 km/h, accelerating from 0 to 60 km/h in just 2.9 seconds. Weighing in at 120 kg, the company has yet to specify whether this weight is dry or kerb. UV asserts that the new Shockwave will provide a range of 165 km (IDC) on a single charge, powered by a 4 kWh battery pack. Also Read : Ultraviolette Tesseract electric scooter debuts promising 261 km range, priced at ₹ 1.45 lakh What is the hardware of the Ultraviolette Shockwave? The newly introduced Ultraviolette Shockwave marks the first of two motorcycles unveiled on the brand's innovative 'Light Vehicle' platform, known as 'Funduro.' The suspension system features 37 mm cartridge-type telescopic front forks offering 200 mm of travel, while the rear is equipped with a monoshock providing 180 mm of travel. This electric enduro is fitted with a 19-inch front wheel paired with a 90/90 section tyre. The rear wheel measures 17 inches and is fitted with a 110/90 section tyre. Both wheels are of the spoked variety. The braking system is comprised of a 270 mm front disc paired with an axial-mounted dual-piston caliper, while the rear features a 220 mm disc with a floating piston caliper. Check out Upcoming EV Bikes in India. First Published Date: 03 Jun 2025, 12:05 PM IST
Mint
19-05-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Bengaluru's Ultraviolette built India's most expensive export motorcycle. Now what?
Mumbai: Tucked away in a dusty small bylane, in an industrial area outside Bengaluru, a dozen crates get ready for shipment. The crates, which will be put in a container and sent to Germany, contain electric motorcycles made in one large shed that doubles up as a factory. The motorcycles are no pushovers. Even at their introductory price of £8,499 in the UK, they will be the most expensive Indian two-wheeler export. They will sport fit, finish and safety standards exacting regulations in western European markets. The specifications—like engine power, top speed and distance travelled per charge of battery (range)—are expected to be comparable to global competitors like Harley Davidson and Zero Motorcycles. However, when it goes on sale next month, European consumers will find the price tag to be significantly lower. For Ultraviolette Automotive, a startup founded in 2015 by two engineering college batchmates, Narayan Subramaniam and Niraj Rajmohan, it would be the moment of reckoning. While its competitors decided to make mass market scooters, Ultraviolette chose the harder path— a street electric motorcycle, which in the automotive world is considered a hard engineering problem. Many argued that it would be impossible to build a motorcycle with a large and heavy battery for long range; it could heat up at high speeds and compromise stability. But Ultraviolette managed to put it all together in its F77 model. The company has already sold 1,500 of them in India since its domestic launch in March 2023. Mukul Ingle from Pune bought a F77 in February 2024 and rode 16,500 km on it thus far. 'My Pune biking club has over 500 members riding mostly premium combustion engine motorcycles. My respect for the F77 is only growing. Most can't believe that my motorcycle hasn't had a glitch so far and that I have saved at least ₹50,000 in fuel costs," he says. In December 2024, another motorcycle under development, the F99, set a record for the fastest quarter mile and is also the fastest Indian motorcycle clocking a speed of 265 kmph. The records are certified by the Federation of Motor Sports Club of India. Then, in February this year, the company announced two new products—a scooter and an off-road motorcycle. With a special introductory offer of ₹120,000 (ex-showroom), the scooter, Tesseract, has already received 60,000 pre-bookings, while the off-roader, Shockwave, has 7,000 bookings. 'From a sheer engineering perspective, Ultraviolette has created a product that passes global muster. There isn't such an example from India and that makes them an important automotive startup case study," Vivekananda Hallekere, founder of Bengaluru-based electric scooter firm Bounce Infinity, says. Ultraviolette's bikes were initially sold in Bengaluru but has now expanded to 12 Indian cities. It is targeting 40 global markets. On the anvil are also bigger factories to make new products—Tesseract and Shockwave. Customer deliveries are expected to start during the March quarter of 2026. The bigger challenges begin now. 'Clearly, Ultraviolette has put itself on a clock to grow bigger and not doing so isn't an option now. Any delay in the delivery of the much sought after scooters won't sit well for the fledgling brand and the business," Deepak Rathore, founder of electric vehicle research firm Insight EV, says. Early risers After studying engineering in Bengaluru, Subramianiam branched off to specialize in vehicle design while Rajmohan studied management and worked in software firms like Yahoo and NetApp. When they got back together in 2015, India's electric two-wheeler business wasn't anything to talk about. In the overall 16 million two-wheeler market, electric vehicles accounted for a mere 16,000. They were mostly Chinese imports that had lead acid batteries, which meant low power and poor range. There weren't many startups in the sector either. Ather Energy was just two years old—Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain founded the company in 2013 to develop an electric scooter platform. It was early days for global bike makers, too. Back then, none of the Japanese giants, like Honda or Yamaha, had even announced prototypes for their electric models. And Harley Davidson unveiled its electric platform, Livewire, only in 2018. California-based Zero Motorcycles, considered the Tesla of electric motorcycles, unveiled its updated SR/F model, priced at £17,990, around the same time. 'All our competitive projects in college were about solving complex problems creatively. We, therefore, wanted to set ourselves a task that no one in India would ordinarily think of. Since Narayan (Subramaniam) was into racing, the idea of building a fast street motorcycle took shape," says Rajmohan, now the chief technology officer (CTO) of Ultraviolette. 'It was also the kind of project that kindled our passion." All of Ultraviolette's current laurels rest on its motorcycle, the F77. Apart from being the costliest Indian made electric two wheeler on the road, it has the most range per single charge. Its battery, the most expensive component, also comes with an 800,000 kilometre warranty. At its lowest price of ₹299,000, it is pricier than most Royal Enfield motorcycle models, the biggest maker of premium bikes in the country. The cheapest Royal Enfield, the 350cc motorcycle Hunter, starts at ₹149,000 (ex-showroom), going up to ₹368,000 (ex-showroom) for the Super Meteor 650. Some buyers compare Ultraviolette's F77 with higher priced international brands such as Aprilia 457 or a Kawasaki 400. The fuel As with many startups, raising money was difficult initially. 'We met 200 investors to showcase our idea before we got our first investor," says Subramaniam. One early investor to bet on the company was Vishesh Rajaram, managing partner of Speciale Invest, who came in as an angel investor. Subsequently, the Chennai-based venture capital firm invested in the company in 2022. 'We didn't invest in the company because they were making a street motorcycle but because they had enough ideas to create a design for a battery pack that could turn into powerful motorcycles," says Rajaram. 'We knew that was the problem to solve before the motorcycle idea even took shape." Shortly after Rajaram, two wheeler maker TVS Motor, which has several combustion engine racing models in its portfolio, invested ₹5 crore in the company in 2017. Ultraviolette first unveiled a prototype of its street motorcycle in 2019, which led to another round of funding. TVS Motor and GoFrugal, a company promoted by SaaS player Zoho's Kumar Vembu, participated. In August 2022, Ferrari's biggest shareholder, Exor, invested $10 million in the company. In November 2024, Ultraviolette raised ₹130 crore in a fresh round of capital led by Zoho. Earlier this month, it said it was raising ₹32.6 crore from a new bunch of investors. Overall, the startup has raised about $83 million. The battery The problem in making a viable electric motorcycle was that its battery had to be powerful enough to enable longer distances at high speed. Since power of the battery is directly proportional to size, it meant the battery pack on the motorcycle had to be large and therefore, heavy. That moved the centre of gravity of the overall motorcycle, making its handling very difficult. Most electric two-wheelers today deliver around 2 to 4 kWh of energy (capacity) and 3 to 11 kW of peak power. 'With the F77 Mach2, we had to scale that up to nearly 10 kWh and 30 kW of electrical power to match and exceed ICE performance. On the F99 racing platform, this went up to 100 kW. But the challenges aren't linear," says Rajmohan. When energy capacity and power are scaled up, increases in thermal loads, current handling, and safety complexity are exponential. One of the biggest breakthroughs was in building a compact, high-density battery architecture that could handle these demands reliably, with tight integration of power electronics, control systems, and safety architecture, he adds. The founder duo went about building things frugally. Once the battery is built, the packs have to be tested on prototypes. The tests generate data on how the battery behaved in actual use conditions; how fast the battery discharged at high speeds versus low speed conditions. The generated data is fed into a machine called the recycler, which simulates road conditions. The early problem for Ultraviolette was that the machine was available in Germany and cost $30,000. There was no way the startup was going to spend its seed money of about $390,000 for one such machine. Says Rajmohan: 'It took us some time but we built a recycler for ₹3,00,000." Hiring the right people helped, too. In 2020, just before the pandemic struck, Ultraviolette had 40 employees. An important executive was Vinayak Bhat, who was picked for his experience in avionics design. Bhat, who is currently the chief product officer, has been the main architect behind designing the battery module and power train. 'Unlike combustion engines which take lots of time and capital to build, electric vehicle technology isn't very difficult. For us, building the battery no one else would attempt was a kind of strategy moat," Subramaniam says. The final ready-to-ride version of the F77 became available in Bengaluru showrooms starting January 2023. The second showroom, in Pune, came up only 18 months later, forcing customers like Mukul Ingle to source from Bengaluru. In 2023-24, the company posted revenue of ₹15 crore and a net loss of ₹61.5 crore. The big question In many ways, Ultraviolette is where Ather Energy was five years ago. It has a great product and strong investors but needs money to scale up. The similarity ends there," says a partner with a Singapore-based investment firm who didn't want to be identified. 'As the F77 is for a niche audience, and more expensive, scale up is going to be more difficult," the executive added. Though Ather was an early mover in the electric scooter business, later entrants like Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor and Ola Electric now sell more scooters. Ather also had to change its strategy, from selling a premium model to introducing cheaper versions for volumes. The options before Ultraviolette, however, are limited. By increasing the points of sales and more marketing, it can hope to achieve bigger volumes. But the company may be running out on time—more competition is knocking at the door. Zero Motorcycles has tied up with Hero MotoCorp to launch their electric motorcycle models in India. Bajaj Auto has said that it will bring its electric motorcycles soon, while Royal Enfield has unveiled its electric model, Flying Flea, at EICMA 2024, an international two-wheeler exhibition. It is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2025-26. Like we mentioned earlier, Ultraviolette has already accepted bookings for its scooter and has given itself about 12 months to deliver them. The company, therefore, would require more money to quickly put up a larger factory, staff it, and build the scooters. Says Rathore of Insight EV: 'Even if Ultraviolette wants to deliver just a few thousand scooters in the first year, it will have to go the distance to set up a larger factory as its current one in Bengaluru is not big enough." The Bengaluru plant has an annual capacity of 10,000 units per shift. One possibility is TVS Motor bringing in more cash. The two-wheeler maker currently owns about 28% and classifies Ultraviolette as an associate company in its balance sheet. More funding could possibly result in a majority stake. 'The life of a startup, even if they have achieved what they set out to do, is not linear," says Rajaram of Speciale Invest. 'These are situations that happen on a daily basis and the promoters need to look for solutions. And every startup problem is always a tough one."
BBC News
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Drayton Manor theme park celebrates 75th birthday
A popular West Midlands theme park is celebrating its 75th birthday on Manor in Staffordshire started out as a modest family run park with simple rides, rowboats and a petting it is one of the region's top tourist attractions, and to celebrate the occasion, it opened a new museum to share the history of the park with its visitors, with other celebrations taking place across the park's managing director Victoria Lynn said: "When we went back in through the archives we thought: "Why not open a museum and allow those memories to come back to our customers who have been coming here for decades and generations?" "You do see grandparents walking around and they talk so fondly about when they were here in the park when it was just a lake and a couple of rides," she museum will display more than 200 archive photos, as well as artefacts and vintage memorabilia. Other events include fireworks on the first Saturday of each month, and live music and entertainment events. The park opened in 1950, and was founded by George and Vera expanded over the decades, introducing thrill rides like Shockwave in 1994 - Europe's first stand-up rollercoaster - and Stormforce 10 in 2008, Thomas Land was introduced, and the site turned into a full resort in 2011, when its four-star hotel is now part of the Looping Group, a company which is made up of 19 parks in Europe, and has 50 rides and attractions and a zoo. Speaking of the new museum, Ms Lynn said: "I really wanted to pay tribute to George and Vera Bryan, I think they were pioneers in the theme park industry, particularly in the UK."I think they did some fantastic things, their vision was amazing... and the rumour is that they borrowed £6,000 to start this whole thing off."What an opportunity for us to share that and showcase that and appreciate where the park's come from." Ms Lynn said the park's mission was to be a "true family park"."In the 90s it was all about thrills the bigger the better…and since Looping have taken over, we've actually gone back to the roots and said: "We actually want to go for families with kids 12 and under, and grandparents, and things like that." Ollie Carr - head of operations - has an interesting connection with the began working there when he was 16, in the Troublesome Trucks photobooth, and has never he, his mother, wife, and mother-in-law all work at the park."We all say…there's more Carr's at Drayton Manor than there's Kardashians in the Hamptons," he 1991, his mother-in-law went into labour on the Pirate Adventure ride, and went on to give birth to the woman who would become his wife many years pair got married at the park in 2018."We got wedding photos on the carousel," he said. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Thrill-seeking over 70s brave the rides for theme park celebration
A group of thrill-seeking over-70-year-olds jumped at the chance to brave the rides at Drayton Manor Resort to mark its major theme park, in Tamworth, Staffordshire, invited the special guests as part of its 75th anniversary. The 180-acre site was first opened by George and Vera Bryan as an amusement park in 1950 and now houses 50 rides and attractions, Europe's only Thomas Land, based on the children's television series Thomas & Friends, and a zoo. "I've been going there for more than 50 years," said Trevor Dawson, 71, from Coventry. Mr Dawson was among 15 pensioners, who have visited the park over the years, to enjoy the Bounty Pirate Ship and Wave Swinger to BBC Radio WM, the grandfather added: "I got my first car in the early 70s, and we went to Drayton Manor and have loved it ever since."I love the adrenaline of it; it's all perfectly safe because you're strapped in, so it's really good. It's a bit of a rush."Barry Moore, 75, said: "I first came to Drayton Manor as a schoolboy in the 1950s. I've always loved going on the rides there and am pleased to say that I still do."As a family, we brought our kids here as they grew up, and now we're thrilled to share the experience with our grandkids." Over the decades, the park saw the introduction of thrill rides including Shockwave in 1994 and Stormforce 10 in became a resort in 2011 following the opening of a Lynn, managing director at Drayton Manor Resort, said: "When we asked if there were any over 70s who wanted to join in our celebrations, we couldn't believe the number of people who wanted to be involved. It really does prove that age is just a number." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Abbott eyes intravascular lithotripsy market with clinical trial approval
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Abbott an investigational device exemption to evaluate the company's coronary intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) system in a clinical trial. The TECTONIC trial will evaluate the yet unnamed system for the treatment of severe calcification in coronary arteries before implanting a stent. A total of 335 people are expected to be enrolled across 47 sites in the US. IVL uses sound waves to break up calcified portions of vessels. The high-frequency, pulsatile pressure fragments calcium lesions and helps restore vessel patency. Though brief on details, Abbott system follows a similar technical vein to other IVL devices. The company says its investigational system uses high-energy sound pressure waves to treat calcium blockages and potentially allow for better stent placement. Abbott's trial arrives in the wake of a growing IVL market. Johnson & Johnson has a FDA-approved technology, gaining access to the Shockwave systems through a $13.1bn acquisition of Shockwave Medical in 2024 – still the largest ever medtech deal to date. Both J&J and Boston Scientific have since doubled down their presence in the market, the newest part of the atherectomy device sector is forecast to grow to over $2bn in value by 2034, as per analysis by GlobalData. Boston spent $664m to acquire IVL specialist Bolt Medical in January this year, whilst J&J expanded its product range with the launch of the Shockwave Javelin Peripheral IVL Catheter. There are multiple early-stage companies developing technology in the field too, including Amplitude Vascular Systems and Elixir Medical, both of whom have reported positive clinical data. IVL is being used for coronary and peripheral artery disease, with the former being the more common type of heart disease, affecting 1 in 20 adults in the US. Abbott's divisional vice president of global clinical affairs at Abbott's vascular business, Jennifer Jones-McMeans, said the clinical trial with its new system is exploring the next generation of calcium modification technology and advancing the company's portfolio of coronary artery disease treatments. The IVL trial initiation comes months after Abbott's orbital atherectomy system failed a trial in October 2024. The Diamondback 360 system, acquired in a $890m buyout of cardiovascular specialist CSI, showed no difference in treating calcified lesions compared to balloon angioplasty. Abbott generated $42bn in revenue for 2024, a 4.3% rise from 2023, driven primarily by diabetes device sales. The company has issued organic sales growth guidance between 7.5% and 8.5%. "Abbott eyes intravascular lithotripsy market with clinical trial approval" was originally created and published by Medical Device Network, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
