Electric Motorcycle Startup, Raptee opens its first manufacturing plant in Chennai

Premium EV Motorcycle Startup, Raptee has opened its first factory in Chennai for manufacturing EV motorcycles to be rolled out later this year. The factory is spread across 3 acres and will house a majority of Raptee’s Research and Development team on the same campus. Raptee plans to invest INR 85 crore in this plant which will have an annual capacity of 1 Lakh units and will serve as the primary production plant for Raptee for the next 24 months. The manufacturing plant will also house a dedicated battery pack assembly line. The company plans to employ 470 people.

The concept of Raptee was born in 2019. The company was founded by four engineers from Chennai (Ex Tesla, Wipro). Being a 60+ member team and boasts of a portfolio of 32 patents. Early this year, Raptee received a grant of Rs 3.27 crore from the Automotive Research Association of India, a leading R&D organization set up by the automotive industry and Govt of India. The grant was given under  AMTIFs (Advance Mobility Transformation & Innovation Foundation) Industry Accelerator program as a part of the Capital Goods Scheme by the Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India.

Speaking about the newly set up plant, Dinesh Arjun, Co-founder CEO, Raptee, says, “This is a huge leap forward for us. We are at an inflection point where we move from a small R&D outfit to becoming a full-blown OEM and we’ve identified the perfect property to maintain the balance for the years to come. We’ve been very particular about having the R&D and Manufacturing teams on the same campus to improve collaborations in this extremely crucial period for the company, and that meant the entire property will need to be inside the City. This facility ticks all those boxes and will help serve our customers better.”

The centrally located property was inaugurated by Mr. Shaji Koshy, Former Sr.Vice president  at Royal Enfield and an advisor to Raptee. Commenting on the factory opening, Shaji Koshy, Former Senior VP, Royal Enfield, says, “I am extremely happy that such young minds from Chennai have been able to develop a remarkable product, and I really want to support this team who has a potential to create a big impact in the EV landscape in India and Globally.”

 Jayapradeep Vasudevan  (JP), Chief Business Officer, Raptee, says, “This move is a big motivation for the entire team at Raptee as the new facility houses a dedicated block for the Admin and R&D, which provides a much better working ambience for our team to enjoy and contribute to the growth journey of Raptee. This facility is big enough to cater to the growing size of our team for the next two years.”