Rajahmundry: Engineering students develop electric bike

Rajahmundry: A four-member team of automobile engineering students from Godavari Institute of Engineering and Technology have developed an electric bike which can be operated with a 48 volt capacity rechargeable battery and reach speeds of 40 km/h for a distance of 50 km on one charge. The team comprising final year students of automobile stream namely — Thota Chaitanya Sai, Chinthabala Mahesh, Derangula Subramanyam and Singala Suresh with the help of their guide P. Veera Raju and Head of the Department V. Subramanyam developed the bike.

GIET principal Dr D.V. Murthy said that the students got hold of an old Hero Splendor bike and made few modifications by ordering the requisite spare parts online and fixed them with a battery to make it run. The students said, “We have developed the electric bike by making minor changes to the conventional bike with the main intention of avoiding air pollution due to its emissions into atmosphere. Moreover, as the cost of petrol is going up every day it is becoming unaffordable for the common man. We spent Rs 36,000 to remodel the bike and it takes three hours to charge the battery. The bike is quite frugal as the power consumption is a meagre three units for a single re-charge.”