 "Altigreen tests fuel-saving, emission-reducing tech with BigBasket, Carzonrent")
Altigreen Propulsion Labs – a clean technology company that has developed a retrofit electric kit which, when connected to a four-wheeler, can reduce emission rates by 20% and improve fuel efficiency by a fourth – is testing its technology with the fleet at BigBasket and Carzonrent.
Backed by Jupiter Capital, Altigreen has developed a motor and battery kit called HyPixi that once fitted in a vehicle uses the stored kinetic energy to run an auto or a car effectively increasing fuel efficiency by 26%. The kit can work on vehicles with carrying capacity below two tonnes.
“We’re not directly going to sell the product to customers now. We want more and more fleet owners to use it and then in 18 months when we have the capacity to service individual clients. Increasingly, new-age businessmen are becoming conscious about their surroundings and the kit also gives them a better fuel efficiency. This makes the product attractive to them and we’re already increasing our customer base in the B2B (business-to-business) side,” said Amitabh Saran, co-founder of Altigreen.
The cost of the kit varies from Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh and comes with a two-year warranty. The company recommends that the battery be changed every three years, which would cost Rs 9,000. Altigreen plans to train workers in existing multi-brand service centres to instal the kit into cars and trucks. The installation takes four-and-a-half hours.
The kit is also eligible for subsidy under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles policy.
“We’re targeting new vehicle owners for our kit. We’re targeting vehicles whose warranty has already expired. We think a taxi owner crosses 40,000 km after which the warranty expires and, hence, it will make sense for him to install the kit. Also, with cities getting more and more polluted each day, people will also want to adopt anything that reduces emission,” added Saran.
While the company has designed the kit only for four-wheelers and trucks, the same can be modified for three-wheelers and two-wheelers as well. However, the company plans to get into that after seeing the response to the four-wheeler kit. The kit also continuously monitors the health of the vehicles and gives real-time reports to the driver. If there is any problem in the kit, the vehicle continues to work normally and the kit does not need any external support – such as electric charging – to run.
The company has already raised Rs 20 crore from Jupiter Capital and Reva co-founder Chetan Maini. It is currently in talks to raise more funds. Saran says the additional funds will be used for manufacturing and to invest in research and development to further strengthen the product. The product is built and approved according to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules and the lab testing of the products has been done at Automotive Research Association of India as well as International Center for Automotive Technology.
