ElecTricks' of the trade: India's first crowd funded electric bike

Picture this: You get on the road without pedalling with just a charge-and-go electrick bike. Fueling your dream to make this true is S Manikandan and Ranganath Thota of Fueladream who have created the first prototype of India’s first crowdfunded electric bike.

Excited about the Spero E-bike that is ready to revolutionise the way we look at urban travel, 38-year old Manikandan, a management graduate who has been working on this project for the last three years, states, “The environment was always an inspiring thought for me. After I completed my post graduation, I joined my family business of jute manufacturing. I continued to do my research on what I could do for the environment, but I wanted to do something more. I got a team of young engineers with me and gave them a list under which one category was electric mobility. Then we added a list of something that required less energy. Bike wasn’t a simple product to make and giving it a comfort factor was critical. Once we had our model ready, we tested it a few times to check if we had reached all the dimensions.”

Ranganath of Fueladream. com from Bengaluru came on board as he loved our idea. “He was keen on moving it to the next stage and thus began our crowdfunding which was a huge success. Soon we had immense funding from students, professionals, doctors and people from other walks of life and we launched the Spero eletric bike with a 48-volt battery that can be recharged by pedaling last week. It will be out in the market in about a month. For our first phase we’re making bikes for the 100 backers who have funded us on our site. There were many challenges, but we were clear that this will be for the masses, yet there were no compromises. My decision itself to not work in a 9 to 5 cushy job and move forward with my plan to do something for our environment and the world at large was a challenge,” shares Manikandan.

Talking of the some of the highpoints of his creation, he adds, “It is to powerful enough to run the bike 100km on a single charge at 25km/h. Mileage is great and this cross between a bicycle and an electric bike, can run 100km on around one unit of charge (at a maximum cost of Rs 9. If you’re looking for some exercise then just pedal it like a regular cycle and you can recharge the 48 volt Lithium ion detachable battery on the cycle.”