The Reva story

In the early 1990s, with a barrel of oil selling at $10, there weren’t too many investors in Electric Vehicle (EV) technology. Moreover, development of new EVs meant overhauling internal combustion engine technology that had been developed and refined over decades. Chetan Kumaar Maini, the founder of the REVA Electric Car Company Private Ltd., recalls the sneers with which conventional auto players met his desire to manufacture cars that ran on electricity. After a five-year stint in the US working with GM and Amerigon, Maini returned to India in 1999. Thankfully, the Maini Group was doing well, and he could afford to pursue his dream of mass-produced EVs.

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Venkatesh Babu

We are sitting in the clubhouse of the Karnataka Golf Association, which overlooks a spread of manicured green. An evening breeze blows across the fairways as we sip hot cups of tea. The noise, dust and grime of Bangalore roads are mercifully out of seeing and hearing range.

Maini, 6ft, is nattily dressed in a colourful striped shirt and sports a neatly trimmed French beard. He leans back languidly and starts talking about his lifelong fascination with automobiles. "Like most kids, I loved cars and started tinkering with models when I was very young. I have been told that one of the first things I identified as a child was my father’s Ford Taunus 1966 model."

This fascination with cars led him to pursue a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Michigan. There, he headed a team which built a solar car that won the top prize in a 2,500km race sponsored by GM. Thereafter, vacations meant working at GM plants, trying to understand how the auto industry works.

It was as a postgraduate student in mechanical engineering at Stanford that Maini’s fascination for hybrid vehicles took a more practical turn. "I decided that I would work in this space," says Maini. After some research, he discovered that Amerigon Inc. was doing good work in the area of electric vehicles (EVs). He was hooked, and began working with Amerigon, which today is a partner of his Reva Electric Car Co. Ltd (RECC).

After two more years of research, the Reva EV was unveiled in June 2001. Named after his mother, it got mostly positive press. But the cars didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. Till date, RECC has sold around 1,800 cars, half of them in the international market.

Later this year, the company plans to introduce a dramatically revamped Reva, which will run for at least 150-200km before it requires recharging. The secret could be in new lithium-ion batteries that will offer better performance than the existing lead-acid ones.

When asked about the Tata Nano, Maini reacts cautiously. “It is a significant achievement for the Indian automotive industry, but it still burns conventional fuel.”

After a motor show in London two years ago, a member of the press called the G-Wiz the "ugliest car at the show." Maini grins when I remind him. "It is a subjective opinion. That is the least of our challenges. We have been taking feedback from current and prospective customers. Newer models might incorporate some of the suggestions."

A couple of automotive companies have been sniffing around Reva. And with good reason. RECC has more than 20 patents in electrical and battery related technology. Maini himself has a patent in energy management system for electric vehicles.

When I ask him if Reva is a potential acquisition target for big foreign auto companies, Maini plays it cool. "Yes, we are talking to several players for all kinds of relationships. We have had a learning curve. We have an IP portfolio. For the moment, though, we continue to focus on upping our capacity from 6,000 to 30,000 vehicles a year."