Chennai-based Abhinava Rizel Ltd, a subsidiary of MM Forgings Ltd, is set to begin manufacturing import-substituting, hybrid motors for electric vehicles next month.
The company will start with motors for passenger and cargo 3-wheelers, for which it has orders, but it also has products ready for passenger cars.
Abhinava will produce motors combining permanent magnet and ‘reluctance’ (PMSM and Syn-RM) motors. These motors combine two functionalities that are almost mutually exclusive—high torque and high rpm. You can have high torque, which helps in starting from rest or climbing a gradient, or high speed—a typical motor is designed for one or the other.
In 2016, three friends – Shivam Bhatia, B V N Madhu and Karthik Donthula – who had just completed their engineering degrees at the SRM Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai decided to join hands and produce a motor with high torque and high speed. They formed the start-up Abhinava Rizel in May 2022.
Their idea was to achieve this by hybridizing the typical permanent magnet motors and reluctance motors. Reluctance is a torque force that arises out of the rotor trying to align itself so that it is easier for the magnetic field to flow through it. Reluctance motors use this property. They were used a hundred years ago, but discarded as inefficient, but they are now making a comeback for electric vehicles, where a steady supply of electricity from the battery pack is possible.
Reducing the size of the permanent magnet in the motor also helps cut costs and weight, as these magnets are heavy and imported.
High torque, high rpm motors imply that a vehicle fitted with it can run at high speeds and climb a steep gradient carrying heavy loads.
In a few years, the team designed the wonder motor. In September 2022 the ₹1,500-crore, Chennai-based auto components manufacturer, MM Forgings bought into the idea, putting in ₹15.84 crore for an 88 per cent stake in Abhinava Rizel. It has since given the subsidiary a loan of ₹15.21 crore. MM Forgings is expected to bring ₹200 crore into Abhinava Rizel.
No competition
Abhinava says that for their products, it is practically a blue ocean out there. “Up to 10 kW, there are many players, but above 10kW, the game changes from volume to technology,” Bhatia told businessline. The start-up has products up to 100 kW. (The 100 kW motor, incidentally, boasts of 12,000 rpm, torque of 250 Newton-metres, peak efficiency of 96 per cent, drive cycle efficiency of 92 per cent and weighs 29 kgs.)
A recent report by the consultants Frost & Sullivan says that the number of electric passenger cars in India will increase to anywhere between 700,000 and a million by 2030, from (an estimated) 123,000 in 2024-25.
R&D focus
While about Rs 85 crore of the funds from MM Forgings have been used to set up the manufacturing facility, Abhinava Rizel is also spending heavily on R&D. Bhatia said that the R&D team’s strength is to be raised from 60 today to about 100. “We are aggressively investing in R&D,” he said, adding that the company had spent $5 m on equipment for in-house validation of its products.
Bhatia feels that when it comes to electric vehicle motors, all countries are at the starting line. India, therefore, has a chance to be at the cutting edge of technology.