Hyderabad: City start-up rolls out full-sized foldable e-bicycle

Hyderabad: The first fully foldable electric bicycle, Hornback, was launched by Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT, Industries and Commerce, here on Sunday.

Appreciating the innovation and creativity of the team, he said e-bicycles will be added to the Telangana e-vehicle policy. Globally the demand and adoption of e-vehicles has been on a strong upswing. The e-bicycle segment is the fastest growing segment in the e-vehicles market.

Jayesh Ranjan encouraged Nishith Parikh and Rajkumar Kewat, the Hyderabad-based founders of Kachbo Design, to establish a full- fledged manufacturing unit for 'Hornback' in Telangana in near future. The duo had met while pursuing M Des at Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT-Bombay.

Kachbo has multiple patents registered for Hornback on the mechanisms they designed. The e-bicycle can go at reasonably high speeds required for urban commuting. The battery can be swapped with ease which makes it ready-to-go, always.

In its folded state, it takes less than half the space of a regular bicycle. It can be conveniently wheeled into all forms of public transport, and can be fit in car boots or elevators with ease.

Ranjan said, "For some reasons, we missed the bicycles segment in our electrical vehicle policy a few years. We included two- wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers and even tractors in the policy. We were perhaps the only State where the electric vehicle policy also supports tractors, people have made use of it and there's a company called celestial."

Parikh said, "We will stop using cars in future; if you look at the cars of today electric cars cost 160 times more to charge them then the regular e-bike. They cost 18 times more per km to ride and they cost 16 times annually as an ownership cost. What's next is also that e-bike occupies 10 per cent of the space that any regular car does."

Kanchan, a member of the Hyderabad Cycling Group, was surprised at the design which allows the user to fold the bike within 10 seconds without compromising on the ride ergonomics. The fact that it doesn't need to be carried in a folded state, like most commercially available products, and can be rolled or pushed like a suitcase, impressed her fellow cyclists. Kanchan said that she was eagerly waiting for the cycle launch in the market.