Latest news with #Ultraviolette
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
World Environment Day 2025: Here's 5 EV bikes to make your commute greener
The Ola Roadster X is one of the most recently launched electric motorbikes in India. On World Environment Day 2025, there's no better time to think about the impact of your commute on the planet. With cities getting more congested and air quality deteriorating, switching to an electric motorcycle is a meaningful way to reduce your carbon footprint. Thanks to advances in battery tech, range, and charging infrastructure, electric motorcycles have now become viable for everyday riders, not just early adopters. (Also check out: Upcoming two-wheelers in India) Here are five of the most compelling electric motorcycles you can consider buying in India to make your commute eco-friendly: 1 Ultraviolette F77 For those who want a high-performance electric bike with premium features, the Ultraviolette F77 is the benchmark. The top-spec variant delivers an IDC range of 307 km and a top speed of 152 kmph, making it suitable even for highway runs. It features aircraft-grade components, a sharp trellis frame, and a futuristic design. Riders get multiple modes, a TFT console with connected features, and fast charging, 0 to 80 per cent in about 50 minutes with the boost charger. It rivals petrol-powered bikes in the 300cc–400cc category in both performance and price. The Ultraviolette is one of the most expensive EV bikes on this list, coming in at ₹ 2.99 lakh (ex-showroom) 3 Ola Roadster X Newly launched in 2025, the Ola Roadster X is Ola Electric's first full-fledged electric motorcycle and represents a major leap from their scooter lineup. The Roadster X gets a futuristic styling, a liquid-cooled motor, and other features that target the premium electric motorcycle segment. The motorbike features three trims with 2.5 kWh, 3.5 kWh and 4.5 kWh battery capacities. The claimed top speed is stated to be around 118 kmph and the largest battery pack of the bike is claimed to provide a range close to 252 km. Each variant of the Ola Roadster X comes with a 4.3-inch LCD instrument console. It has features like Bluetooth connectivity, turn-by-turn navigation, reverse mode, and cruise control. All the variants get brake-by-wire, a tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS), over-the-air (OTA) updates, and an all-LED lighting setup. The Roadster X starts at a price of ₹ 1 lakh (ex-showroom). Check out Upcoming EV Bikes in India. First Published Date: 05 Jun 2025, 17:15 PM IST NEXT ARTICLE BEGINS
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
Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Renowned photographer, actor Radhakrishnan Chakyat passes away at 53, Dulquer Salmaan mourns loss
Renowned photographer and Malayalam actor Radhakrishnan Chakyat passed away from a heart attack on May 22 at the age of 53. Known for his photography, Chakyat made his acting debut with Dulquer Salmaan's film Charlie. He was also the founder of Pixel Viilage, a popular YouTube channel dedicated to photography education. The news of Chakyat's demise was shared by the Pixel Village team on their social media handle. It read, 'It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our beloved mentor, friend, and inspiration, Radhakrishnan Chakyat. A guiding light in our photography journey, he not only taught us how to see the world through the lens but also how to capture its soul. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and all who were touched by his presence. May we continue to honor his memory by carrying forward the light he so generously shared with us all.' ALSO READ | Dulquer Salmaan teaches daughter Maryam how to handle their Ultraviolette electric superbike. See pic Actor Dulquer Salmaan, who played the role of Chakyat's son in the movie Charlie, mourned the loss of his co-star on social media. He took to his Instagram handle and wrote, 'Our time and conversations together will forever stay with me.' Radhakrishnan Chakyat was last seen in the Hindi web series Crime Beat.
Hindustan Times
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Bengaluru rider clocks 65,000 km in a year on the Ultraviolette F77 Mach 2
Harish Surampade covered, on average, nearly 178 km per day over 12 months. His longest single-day ride covered 650 km. Bengaluru-based Harish Surampade covered 65,000 km in just one year with his Ultraviolette F77 Mach 2, marking one of the highest annual mileages ever recorded on E2Ws in India. Check Offers A Bengaluru-based rider has completed an impressive 65,000 km on an electric motorcycle within a year, marking one of the highest annual mileages ever recorded on an electric two-wheeler in India. The rider, Harish Surampade, achieved this milestone on the Ultraviolette F77 Mach 2, showcasing both his endurance and the durability of the motorcycle. Covering an average of nearly 178 km a day over 12 months, Surampade's journey tackles concerns regarding the real-world range and long-distance capabilities of EV two-wheelers. Ultraviolette has stated that Surampade is the first rider to clock in over 50,000 km on the F77. Among the most notable aspects of the journey was a single-day ride covering 650 km. The F77 Mach 2 delivers a single-charge range of 323 km (IDC-certified), suggesting that Surampade would have had to charge his bike at least twice during the entire day. Surampade relied predominantly on the F77's Ballistic riding mode, using it for over 81 per cent of the total distance. The more balanced Combat mode accounted for about 10.6 per cent of the total distance covered, while the energy-efficient Glide mode was used for only 7.6 per cent. The extensive use of the high-performance mode suggests a lot of spirited riding, putting to rest doubts over the long-range potential and usability of e-motorcycles beyond urban usage. Surampade's journey put the F77 Mach 2 to the test across a broad spectrum of weather conditions, ranging from over 44 degrees in Chennai to the sub-zero temperatures of Nepal. Ultraviolette estimates that the rider saved approximately ₹ 2.46 lakh in fuel costs over the year, underscoring the long-term advantage of the switch to electric mobility. Check out Upcoming EV Bikes in India. First Published Date: 21 May 2025, 16:10 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."
