Hyderabad: Next summer, Naveen Rabelli plans to go on a road-trip from Bengaluru to London, but not on a motorhome or a bike. The Hyderabadi will be travelling to 10 different countries in his customised “solar tuk-tuk”.
Naveen has converted a Piaggio Apé into a solar-electric auto-rickshaw. That means, even as he travels 10,000 kilometres on his way, he isn’t polluting the air.
Zero emission is what his ‘Tejas Mission’ intends to achieve. The backpacker has another agenda too. He will travel 100 km a day, halt at villages, meet interesting people and record their stories in a film.
Naveen, who will make a formal announcement of his ambitious project on June 23, is a bundle of nerves. “I started in 2012 and it’s 2014 already. I had thought the tuk-tuk would be up and running in four months. But months passed by, I left my job, became a mechanic from an electrical engineer, spent all my savings, Rs 3.5 lakh. Yeah, I am pretty much broke. These days, I am teaching badminton to kids for a living and staying at a friend’s place in Bengaluru for free,” says Naveen.
Quite evidently, Naveen has had more misses than hits during the project. But he accepts it has been a learning curve.
Naveen recalls how he hit upon the idea, “My friend and I were on our way to a kite festival in Mysore and we got stuck in traffic. We went for drinks instead. Sitting inside the bar, I saw so many auto rickshaws in the traffic and I thought, ‘This must be so polluting. What if we make these autos eco-friendly?’”
A few days later, he went to a local auto market, bought a Piaggio Apé, turned the car parking space in his Bengaluru apartment into a garage and initiated the R&D.
His three years experience as an automotive electrical engineer in Australia didn’t help much. So, he learnt the design and mechanical aspects of a vehicle from the Web and mechanics in his locality. He 3D printed prototypes of the automotive parts to customise his tuk-tuk.
Fortunately, things have finally fallen in place now and Naveen’s rickshaw has been plying in and around Bengaluru for the past five months. “I ride 80 km a day and review its performance at night.”
Till next summer, Naveen plans to ride to Mysore and Hyderabad to showcase his work and raise sponsorship.
