Namaskar Pune. It’s time to take charge!
A red ribbon was cut and a blue satin cloth was pulled out revealing a 7 foot tall matt black structure amidst joyous cheers all around. September 30, 2019 was not just another Monday morning for all of us at Tork Motors as we unveiled the first unit of our fast charging station at Cafe Peter’s bund garden road outlet in our home city of Pune.
While interacting with our community, a lot of people referred to the chicken and egg scenario with regards to the charger and our bikes. I am writing this article to elaborate on that analogy and explain our thought process around the same.
What comes first? The charging infrastructure or the electric vehicle?
We believe that the charging infrastrucuture comes first and here is why :)
Questions like why set up public charging stations? won’t home chargers do the trick for a bike like T6X that has a 100km range? are all legit. All Tork Motorbikes do come with home charging capabilities complete with installation support but there is a bigger vision that we are chasing here.
At Tork Motors, we aim to eliminate any barrier that exists between an individual, organization or a region’s intention to adopt electric mobility and be actually able to do it. What would it take to make Indian cities EV ready is more of a problem statement that we want to take on.
While we believe that an electric, connected and smart motobike like our T6X be able to look and perform over and above compared to other models in the same segment, we also want to ensure that we raise the bar when it comes to the ownership experience of our riders as well as the EV community at large. So when we decided to build a charging network, we wanted to build one that is more inclusive as well as future proof and we are just getting started.
Tork Fast Charging stations support all vehicles including four wheelers that have a GB/T plug (think E20, E-Verito, E-Tigor etc). All that the user has to do today is to park, plug in, authenticate using a PIN (ask the cafe staff) and chill. We will also soon be releasing our app complete with a payment gateway integration that will make discoverability, monitoring and payments seamless!
The charger is also faster than the ones used for home charging and our tests show that a Tork Motorbike gains approximately 1.5kms worth of charge every minute while being charged. A quick coffee at Cafe Peter and you can be on your way again!
Setting up a charger network is no easy task. Apart from the time, effort and cost required for the development of the charger, it is also key to identify convenient locations to ensure that the charging network is easily discoverable, accessible and convenient to use.
On that note, I would like to thank the group of entrepreneurs from Pune who have graciously signed up with us to usher in the future by providing the space for setting up our charger network. A big shout out to Mr. Ashish Ranjankar of Cafe Peter’s Bund Garden outlet for being the first ever Tork Charger Partner!
What are your thoughts about making India EV ready? Please share your comments below!
Cheers,
Team Tork
