EV Motorcycle Startup, Raptee, has opened its first factory for manufacturing electric motorcycles to be rolled out later this year. The factory, which is opened in Chennai, is spread across 3 acres and will house a majority of Raptee’s Research and Development team on the same campus.
Raptee plans to invest Rs 85 crore in this plant which will have an annual capacity of 1 lakh units and will serve as the primary production plant for Raptee for the next 24 months. The Company plans to employ 470 people for the manufacturing and further design innovation in their motorcycles.
The R&D centre will house state-of-the-art development and testing facilities on-site and will aid in future products, while the manufacturing plant will house a dedicated battery pack assembly line.
Speaking about the newly set up plant, Dinesh Arjun, Co-founder and CEO, Raptee, Says “This is a huge leap forward for us. We are at an inflexion point where we move from a small R&D outfit to becoming a full-blown OEM and we’ve identified the perfect property to maintain the balance for the years to come.”
He added, “We’ve been very particular about having the R&D and Manufacturing teams in the same campus to improve collaborations in this extremely crucial period for the company and that meant the entire property will need to be inside the City. This facility ticks all those boxes and will help serve our customers better.”
The property was inaugurated by Shaji Koshy, Former Senior Vice president at Royal Enfield and an advisor to Raptee. Commenting on the factory opening, Koshy says, “I am extremely happy that such young minds from Chennai have been able to develop a remarkable product and I really want to support this team who has the potential to create a big impact in the EV landscape in India and Globally.”
Early this year, Raptee received a grant of Rs 3.27 crore from the Automotive Research Association of India. The grant was given under AMTIFs (Advance Mobility Transformation & Innovation Foundation) Industry Accelerator program as a part of the Capital Goods Scheme by the Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India.
