Sona Comstar (Sona Comstar eDrive Private Limited), a wholly-owned subsidiary company of Sona BLW Precision Forgings Limited, today announced its collaboration with Israel’s IRP Nexus Group Ltd, for development, manufacturing, and supply a magnetless drive motor and the matching controller (“system”) for performance two-wheelers and three-wheelers for the global market. The agreement was signed on 30th September 2021 through the initiative of the International Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate), India’s technology business incubation centre.
As per the agreement, IRP will license its technology to Sona Comstar for the manufacturing of the system exclusively in India for the global market. The system envisages a motor-plus-controller combination that does not use rare earth elements like neodymium, besides offering high efficiency and low-cost to manufacturers of electric two- and three-wheelers.
The project is expected to mitigate the risk stemming from dependency on limited and unreliable sources, apart from ensuring a more environmentally friendly production process.
Under the arrangement, Sona Comstar will pay a one-time license fee and royalty to IRP Nexus during the term of the agreement. The term of the agreement is seven years. Sona Comstar will have the exclusive rights to manufacture the system in India and non-exclusive rights to sell and distribute the system globally.
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The EV industry is likely to benefit from a reduced cost of production and will be insulated against supply chain disruptions of rare earth minerals required today for electric motors. Sona Comstar is confident that this new innovating technology will have a wide-scale implication and the potential towards environmental sustainability, besides reducing the cost of EV vehicles, Sunjay Kapur, Chairman Sona Comstar, said.
This agreement will bring a new kind of technology not seen before in electric two and three-wheelers, making them much more affordable. Electric Vehicles are the future of mobility and we at Sona Comstar are doing our utmost towards making the technology sustainable, affordable and environment friendly, Vivek Vikram Singh, Managing Director and Group CEO, said.