Manufacturing For A Gig Economy M

Shark Tank India fame Revamp Moto are manufacturing for a gig economy. Deepti Thore caught up with the team to look at the localisation of the commercial offerings.

anufacturing intense businesses are catering today to the changing economic landscape. From asset heavy business models to asset light businesses are more reliant on a gig economy. The gig workforce, a vital cog in this wheel, has India at the forefront of this revolution. The last minute scheduling synonymous to a gig economy has startups like Revamp Moto thinking out of the box. According to a study released by Niti Aayog in 2022, Gig and Platform Economy is booming in India and the gig workforce is expected to expand to 23.5 mn workers by 2029-30. The attempt to empower the gig workers and move them from unorganised to organised sector is fructifying. Speaking about the shift, Pritesh Mahajan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Revamp Moto said, “The motto of our company is to bring about this shift from unorganised to organised in the gig economy. We want the gig workers to go beyond salaries and chase entrepreneurship that they might have dreamt of.”

Localised gig solutions

At the heart of the EVs are batteries. Mahajan highlighted how Revamp ensured adoption of the technology such that the battery packs steer clear of a thermal runaway. “That is one achievement that we have made in the battery packs and we have already filed patents for the same,” he averred. The company is simultaneously working on multiple IPs, BMS and wiring harnesses. Majorly focused on building a product, Revamp is collaborating with other companies to codesign products and to ensure that whatever they build should sustain and survive in the market to actually help the customers that are buying the vehicles. “We are not mainly focused on just building the vertical integration of the technology in house because that is very company centric, we want to be society centric, we want to ensure that whatever we are building is also making a difference in the society,” he clarified.

The processes put in place by the company in the assembly line are sustainable, scalable and cost effective as per the claims made. Having set a target to build a small batch of 150-200 vehicles in April 2023, the company is looking at splitting it down further into eight to 10 different batches to optimise the assembly process. Investing only a sizable amount of money in the assembly line, Revamp is ensuring that it can cater to a demand of around

1500-2000 vehicles a month which would be ~25,000-30,000 vehicles annually. The company also plans to install a fully automated assembly line in future which will require an investment 10 times higher than the current one. It plans to adopt Industry 4.0 technology to optimise the entire assembly line and operations. It also plans to shift to a bigger facility. The current facility is spread across 50,000 sq. ft.

The manufacturing setup is an outcome of the founders at Revamp Moto analysing the demand-supply gap at a time when a lot of players are making a buzz in the electric twowheeler segment. “We realised if we get into a scooter segment, we might end up running in a rat race where we might not have the deep pockets to compete with all these big brands,” expressed Mahajan. He further added, “We realised that we needed to pin and fix a niche, target it and work towards the objective.”The company then focused on the idea to manufacture vehicles which will adapt to customer use cases instead of the customers adapting to the vehicle as there were no such vehicles in the market during that point of time, he claimed. That is when the company started working on what they claim to be India’s first range of transformable EVs. “We did not want to focus on the cream layer but we wanted to focus on the bottom of the pyramid, which is actually going to make a difference,” Mahajan reiterated.

Empowering individuals to become self-sustained business owners, Revamp Moto introduced its transformable EVRM Mitra, its flagship in the high-speed electric two-wheeler segment. Aimed at providing a complete ecosystem to its consumers to help them start their own ‘Chalti phirti dukaan’ or a shop on wheels, the RM Mitra is offered with an auxiliary system for a wide range of products and services. Revamp Moto not only plans to provide the product but also offer financial support through various types of schemes in a push for the RM Mitra. Along with providing technical inputs, guidance on selling, and timely intel to help these micro entrepreneurs succeed, Revamps’ attachments offered on the Mitra could open new doors for various categories of the gig economy including farmers and delivery personnel.

Offering best-in-class payload capacity and range in a single charge, RM Mitra, as per the company claims,