In a matter of days, the first shipment of electric motorcycles from Ultraviolette Automotive will begin its transcontinental journey to Europe. Soon after, the sleek, high-performance F77 will light up the roads of Germany, the UK, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—marking not just a product launch, but the realisation of a vision carefully charted eight years ago. Production is in full swing, with export-ready bikes securely crated and lined up in the vehicle inventory hold area at the plant.
Back in 2017, long before the world had fully caught on to India’s potential as a hub for electric performance engineering, co-founders Narayan Subramaniam and Neeraj Rajmohan laid out an ambitious plan in a pitch deck that aimed far beyond domestic boundaries. It wasn’t just about building an electric motorcycle; it was about redefining what such a machine could be—and where it could belong. Europe, with its discerning riders and legacy brands, was always on the map. That plan is now in motion, powered by persistence, precision, and a presumptuous belief that innovation from India can compete with the best in the world.
Long before Ultraviolette Automotive became one of India's most intriguing EV disruptors, it began as a shared dream between the Co-founders, who were childhood friends. Their story stretches beyond business, rooted in an enduring friendship that began in middle school and evolved into a shared passion for building things that fly, move, or think. From robots and aircrafts to software and drones, their early years were marked by relentless tinkering and competition wins at prestigious college tech fests like IIT Chennai's Shaastra and IIT Bombay's TechFest.
Subramaniam, with a design degree from NID Ahmedabad and global automotive experience at Toyota, Daihatsu, and Volkswagen, brought deep design insight. Rajmohan, a computer hardware enthusiast with stints at Yahoo and NetApp, attempted a drone startup as early as 2009. Their combined passion for cross-functional innovation—spanning electronics, mechanics, robotics, and design—set the foundation for something audacious.
By 2015, inspired by Tesla's rise and disillusioned by India's slow-moving automotive sector, they co-founded Ultraviolette Automotive. Their goal: build India’s first high-performance electric motorcycle company from the ground up, fusing aerospace-grade engineering, offered by Vinayak S Bhat, joined the company as Chief Product Officer, with cutting-edge design. With stints in ISRO and Safran, Bhat’s expertise lay in structural design—specifically, in creating redundancy while minimising weight, in terms of extensive load-sharing between components, ensuring strength without excess mass.
Their approach was unconventional. While most EV players chased scooters, Ultraviolette took a bold top-down route, starting with a high-performance motorcycle, the F77. The name itself is a nod to their aviation obsession, echoing fighter jets like the F16 and F22. Even the company name, 'Ultraviolette,' was chosen for its global resonance and brand strength, the duo said.
The F77 was not just about specs. It represented a philosophy: no exposed bolts, seamless aesthetics, and a battery pack engineered with aerospace standards. Their R&D team was lean—just 40 to 50 people—but composed of veterans from ISRO, Samsung, Safran, and Honeywell. Together, they tackled challenges that ranged from thermal management to modular battery architecture, often creating solutions unseen in the automotive space.
What also set the company apart was its culture. It operated more like a deep-tech startup than a traditional OEM. Engineers from consumer electronics and avionics worked side by side, bridging two very different product mindsets—short lifecycle agility vs long-term durability. Despite early funding constraints and a market dominated by legacy players, Ultraviolette stayed true to its vision. Backed by early believers like Speciale Invest, and later by TVS Motors, Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu, Sridhar’s brother Kumar Vembu, Qualcomm, and Exor, they slowly built credibility. Today, with a full portfolio of performance motorcycles in development—including sports, street, cruiser, and off-road bikes, as well as youth and family-oriented scooters—the company is readying for scale.
Starting From Scratch
At Ultraviolette’s design studio, every two-wheeler begins life with a sketch that aims to capture emotion—aggressive, bold, and futuristic. This creative journey moves from hand-drawn concepts to 3D modelling, clay sculpting, and final production design, all executed in-house with a focus on modularity and scalability, Subramaniam said.
To assess and onboard new talent, the studio even uses live design projects as real-time tests. Designers and engineers collaborate across multiple rounds of evaluation to shape the vehicle’s visual language and functional ergonomics. Particularly in motorcycles, rider posture is paramount. Every contour is carefully crafted—how the thighs grip the tank (not for petrol, but for housing chargers and ECUs), how the rider leans into corners—to deliver confidence and aerodynamic control at speed.
The ergonomic geometry, defined through the rider triangle—seat, handlebar, and floorboard—is benchmarked against both Indian and European anthropometrics (ranging from 4’10” to 6’4”), ensuring comfort and accessibility across markets. This geometry is refined through full-scale clay modelling and 3D scanning, enabling rapid iteration between physical and digital environments before finalising the production-ready design.
According to Subramaniam, this rigorous approach has shaped Ultraviolette’s upcoming scooter, the Tesseract—India’s most powerful at 15 kW, more than twice the output of typical competitors. With a form that breaks away from decades-old silhouettes, it blends the appeal of sporty scooters and futuristic EVs, addressing the Indian market’s appetite for innovation. Unlike the conventional sameness across existing models, the Tesseract brings a bold new identity and a radically advanced powertrain rooted in learnings from the high-performance F77 motorcycle.
Technology is seamlessly embedded into form. The scooter includes radar-based object detection, integrated DRLs, brake lights, and floating indicators—all built to accentuate function and aesthetics. Each detail is designed with production in mind—except for the carbon-fibre bodied F99, which is a low-volume, hand-built halo product meant to push boundaries rather than chase numbers, he explained.
Research & Development
Ultraviolette has built its electric mobility platform with a deep focus on cybersecurity, modular scalability, and high-performance electronics, ensuring it is not only future-ready but also globally competitive.
At the heart of its approach is a multi-layered cybersecurity framework. Every vehicle control unit begins with a secure boot—unauthorised firmware cannot be loaded unless it’s verified by the company's encryption keys. Subsystems like the Battery Management System (BMS)—the most safety-critical part—operate independently, taking real-time decisions regardless of external commands. Key data pathways, including throttle input, are protected as read-only, and internal communications between components such as the BMS and Vehicle Control Unit (VCU) are encrypted, explained Rajmohan.
Cloud communication is also secured, with a real-time operating system ensuring deterministic, sub-20 millisecond responses to safety triggers. The vehicle maker has considered advanced techniques like homomorphic encryption but favours on-device decision-making to avoid latency.
This security-first architecture is built on a modular platform developed over seven years. Core systems—BMS, VCU, motor controller—are designed to scale across vehicle classes. The F77 runs on a 30 kW system, the upcoming scooter operates between 10–15 kW, and the high-performance F99 steps up to 100 kW using a newly developed 400V battery architecture, he said.
Unlike conventional 60V platforms, this high-voltage setup supports liquid cooling and sustained performance, critical for global markets. Though such systems are common in electric cars, Ultraviolette has adapted them ingeniously for space-constrained two-wheelers, he pointed out.
Motor technology has also evolved. The company co-developed its motor with a startup—now acquired by Dana—that originally built electric motors for light aircraft. While the rotor was retained, the stator was customised to suit low-airflow conditions in bikes, without compromising on performance. For different power bands, the OEM uses a common internal battery architecture, with modules varying by configuration—enabling platform standardisation and manufacturing efficiency.
Cost control extends to production and service. The company has developed its own battery end-of-line testing equipment at one-tenth the industry cost, slashing capex while enabling scale. A compact ‘black box’ diagnostic tool replicates the vehicle’s systems for service centres, reducing space requirements and improving repair turnaround, Rajmohan mentioned.
Anticipating increased sales, the company is finalising a new plant location in either Karnataka or Tamil Nadu, which will complement its existing Bengaluru facility—the production hub for the F77, the Co-founders mentioned.
As they gear up for their international debut, the company stays true to its mission of blending cutting-edge design, high performance, and advanced technology to redefine what electric vehicles can be.
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