This Gurugram-Based Company Is Converting Normal Cycles Into E-Bikes

On the last week of April this year, Hyderabad witnessed a mega exhibition (RenewX) of renewable energy players. Several large and small-scale clean tech companies exhibited their popular and innovative products for visitors. However, one of the exhibitors saw an overwhelming response to their latest product. 

Tirath Khaira, director of Smarten, was busy demonstrating how his newly-introduced electric bicycle retrofitting works and its benefits. Smarten, which is a Gugugram-based company, was till now known for its solar inverters. However, in the last six months, it has been busy making profits from its newly-launched bicycle retrofitting services. Under this, they are converting any standard bicycle to e-bikes. 

Khaira said the main idea behind this was to boost a clean, sustainable transport mode and promote cycling in Indian cities. He claimed such innovative works would likely offer cyclists and aware citizens an affordable option to switch to cycling for commuting and shun polluting vehicles. 

“We are offering these services at a meager cost so that a common person who wants to use a cycle and shun polluting sources of vehicles can do so. Any person with a normal cycle can visit our stores and convert it into an e-bike within one hour. We can convert any form of cycles-the low-end cycles, ladies’ cycles, or the high-end cycles into e-bikes,” he told Saur Energy.

Khaira claimed that till now, the firm has sold or retrofitted more than 600 such cycles. The firm not only retrofits old bicycles but also sells new e-cycles. Smarten has fixed the retrofitting cost at Rs 15,000 per cycle. On the other hand, it is charging Rs 35,000 for a new e-bike. The firm claimed that it received an overwhelming response from consumers. 

However, Smarten has its operations confined to Delhi-NCR alone but is in talks to expand these services in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, and other areas. Khaira claimed that several other small players also offer such kinds of retrofitting services, but Smarten, he said, had a more scrutinized and tested technology.

“There are some other players in the market too. However, in many such cases, there are several compatibility issues. Sometimes the chains don’t work with the motors, or some other problem crops up. We had done exhaustive trials before we launched it six months back. We have tried it on normal roads and off-roads to test its efficacy. So we can assure long-lasting and high quality compared to others. That is why demands for such things are rising, and we expect to scale up the business in other Indian cities soon,” he said. 

As per the details of Smarten, these e-bikes can run up to 40 kilometers with a single charge, while it takes around four hours to charge the battery fully. The battery has a capacity of 60 Volt.