Electric motorcycle startup Raptee opens its first manufacturing plant in Chennai

Electric Vehicles (EV) motorcycle startup Raptee today announced the opening of its first factory for manufacturing EV motorcycles in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

According to the company's statement, The factory is spread across 3 acres and will house a majority of Raptee’s Research and Development team on the same campus.

The startup plans to invest Rs 85 crore in this plant which will have an annual capacity of 1 Lakh units and will serve as the primary production plant for Raptee for the next 24 months. 

It also plans to employ 470 people for the manufacturing and further design innovation in its highly awaited motorcycles.

The R&D center will house state-of-the-art development and testing facilities on-site and will aid in future products while the manufacturing plant will house a dedicated battery pack assembly line. 

Speaking about the newly set up plant, Dinesh Arjun, Co-founder & CEO, Raptee, said, “This is a huge leap forward for us. We are at an inflection point where we move from a small R&D outfit to becoming a full-blown OEM and we’ve identified the perfect property to maintain the balance for the years to come. We’ve been very particular about having the R&D and Manufacturing teams in the same campus to improve collaborations in this extremely crucial period for the company and that meant the entire property will need to be inside the City. This facility ticks all those boxes and will help service our customers better.”

The centrally located property was inaugurated by Shaji Koshy, Former Sr.Vice president at Royal Enfield and an advisor to Raptee. 

Shaji Koshy, Former Senior VP of Royal Enfield, said, “I am extremely happy that such young minds from Chennai have been able to develop a remarkable product and I really want to support this team who has a potential to create a big impact in the EV landscape in India and Globally. It's an honour and happy moment for me to be inaugurating the new facility for Raptee, which is now moving from its small R&D centre to a full-fledged OEM facility, and I wish they run out of capacity very soon in this facility.”

Jayapradeep Vasudevan (JP), Chief Business Officer, Raptee, said, “This move is a big motivation for the entire team at Raptee as the new facility houses a dedicated block for the Admin and R&D, which provides a much better-working ambience for our team to enjoy and contribute to the growth journey of Raptee. This facility is big enough to cater to the growing size of our team for the next two years. From a manufacturing capacity standpoint, it also gives us enough flexibility to meet the customer demand from the time of launch. The fact that the families of our team attended the inauguration reiterates the commitment of our team and their families' support towards the success of Raptee. At this moment, as a team we are really happy and proud that we are progressing towards delivering a world-class EV motorcycle and customer experience to become a Premium EV brand.”

Early this year, Raptee received a grant of Rs 3.27 crore from the Automotive Research Association of India, a leading R&D organization set up by the automotive industry and Govt of India.

The grant was given under  AMTIFs (Advance Mobility Transformation & Innovation Foundation) Industry Accelerator program as a part of the Capital Goods Scheme by the Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India. The MOUs were exchanged in the presence of Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Minister of Heavy Industries, Government of India.

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