Bounce Partners With Chara For Rare-Earth Free And Hyper-Efficient Motors For Its Fleet Electrification

* Bounce will use Chara’s locally produced electric motors for its owned fleet of EVs

Bounce, India’s first smart urban mobility solution, has signed a deal with Chara, a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup that has developed motor technology which  is rare-earth free, hyper-efficient and easier/cheaper to build. The partnership will lead  to  locally produced electric motors for its owned fleet of EVs. The partnership will see Chara design and manufacture customized motors for Bounce based on Chara’s innovative motor and drive technologies. . This development is a part of Bounce’s strategy to develop its owned fleet of EVs deployed for its mobility solutions. With localization of the core component of the electric vehicle, Bounce will save a ton of imports : motors and its associated controllers are now imported in all EVs deployed in India.

Speaking on this announcement, Vivekananda H R, Co-Founder, Bounce said, “EV adoption in India has been hampered by dependence on imports for the core components of the drive-train.  We are excited to be partnering with Chara to source locally produced rare earth magnet free electric motors, which will go a long way in maintaining cost efficiencies while making India independent of the global supply of rare earth materials. We are entering a brand new age of electric mobility.”

The world is finally moving away from a hydro-carbon based (Petrol, Diesel, Natural Gas et al. ) economy to an electron (batteries, FCV et al.) based economy. This has led to, amongst many other things, greater dependence on rare-earths for building our motors, batteries and electronics. This partnership will make EV manufacturing sustainable and empower the local innovation ecosystem.

Rare-Earth minerals are unevenly distributed on this planet and their mining and processing is environmentally harmful. The price of Rare-Earths has increased by 100% over the past year alone. Geopolitical risks and rising global demand for Rare-Earth Magnets can result in supply bottlenecks and increased price volatility. Thus under the current circumstances, Chara’s motors come with various advantages. Decoupling from Rare-Earth magnets, Chara’s motors are made with more 100% locally sourced, sustainable raw materials, which can reduce the motor cost by up to 40%. Their simple construction and fault tolerant electrical design provide a robust motor with high temperature tolerance.

On this partnership, Founder and CEO of Chara, Bhaktha Keshavachar said, “This partnership is a testament to our ability to partner with innovative companies that are striving towards a common goal of a more sustainable future. It is necessary to invest in deep tech to build technologies that can help us move towards sustainability in the long term and also help the country to play a more significant role in the electric transformation than just to remain as consumers.“

The novel motors custom designed by Chara for Bounce will be locally manufactured and deployed in Bounce’s fleet at the beginning of next year. The motor, when deployed, will be the first of its kind in the world and opens up opportunities in other platforms, in  domestic and foriegn markets.

About Bounce

Bounce is India's first intelligent dock-less urban mobility solution with a mission of making daily commute stress-free, time-saving, reliable and convenient. Founded in 2014 by Vivekananda H.R., Anil G and Varun Agni, this Bangalore based start-up aims to decongest the roads by encouraging commuters to choose public transport and provide a seamless first/last mile connectivity. With its patented key-less technology, Bounce users can pick up/drop the bikes, bicycles or electric bikes anywhere in the city at any time. https://bounceshare.com/

About Chara

Founded by industry veterans, Chara is a deep-tech startup on a mission to make our electric future sustainable. Chara develops scalable, cloud-controlled, and rare earth magnet-free Hardware and Software platforms for the Switched Reluctance Motor and other magnet-free motor technologies. Backed by game changing IP in motor and control design, Chara’s motors are robust, high performance and hyper-efficient with low manufacturing cost. Chara has been backed by Kalaari, Ciie@IIMA and IISc. http://www.charatechnologies.com/