Conversation Highlights:
- Kyte Energy believes in a horizontal work culture, where proposals and ideas from individual contributors are valued and celebrated.
- Integration of Artificial Intelligence & Internet Of Things is going to be a constant trend for at least the next 10 years.
- Kyte Energy will be raising funds for its 2 upcoming revolutionary products. Both models will be incorporated with Kyte Energy’s patented technologies.
What is the driving force, your purpose(WHY) behind starting Kyte Energy?
I quit my job at Detroit Electric in June 2018. After completing my education in the UK, I gained a lot of experience as a Mechanical Engineer in different Companies but after working at Detroit Electric is when I realized that yes electric is going to be the next big thing all around the world. My passion to make a difference and doing something for my country was pushing me to leave my job and go back to BHARAT (INDIA). I gained the confidence to quit the job after discussing my passion with the other two Co-founders of Kyte Energy, Kush Arora & Nikhil Sethi. It is after a deep discussion we three decided to quit our jobs and begin our journey of Kyte Energy. Kyte Energy was established in September 2019.
How would you describe the work culture at Kyte? Tell us a little about the expectation settings that are prevalent in the company.
Kyte Energy believes in a horizontal work culture, where proposals and ideas from individual contributors are valued and celebrated. We at Kyte also believe in encouraging new employees to provide suggestions or ideas by having Co-founders (Leaders) meet the employees early on to set a precedent for accessibility right away. To improve productivity and engagement setting up employee expectations is very important. More than 50% of employees working in giant companies don’t know what is expected out of their team or them, which creates chaos and results in miscommunication, lack of productivity, frustration and a low retention rate. Kyte Energy believes in clarity and follows these four simple steps in expectation setting:
Defining the role of an employee in the organization
Clear communication of why what they do matters
Written communications of expectation
Promote an Environment of Consistency
In what ways do the EV scooters reflect the company’s ideals and purpose?
Mostly all the products available in the automotive industry are uniquely designed and developed to serve the ideals and purpose of their companies. In a similar way in the EV two-wheeler industry, each product is different and is uniquely designed to serve a different purpose. In the case of Kyte Energy, Kyte means FREEDOM and the whole design and features of our scooters serve freedom in its area.
Freedom from Range Anxiety: Integration of 2 batteries in Magnum Pro with a true range of 160km delivering 0 downtimes to ride – defines freedom of Range.
Freedom of Space – Unique design of Magnum pro delivers a foot space that can comfortably fit a cylinder and is higher when compared to any of the competitors in the market plus integrations of dual batteries in the scooter without compromising boot space is unique in itself. Thus delivering freedom of space.
Freedom of Power & Warranties: Specially designed integrated BMS which works in sync with controller and motor delivering uncompromised power and speed without hampering the efficiency of the scooter delivering freedom of Power. Apart from this warranty of Magnum Pro does not come with any kilometer clause, thus delivering freedom from warranty restrictions.
Any particular reason behind choosing Nashik as the HQs?
My dad traded in Spare Parts and Accessories of Four wheeler along with that he also owns 2 x Lead Battery raw material manufacturing plants for the last 3 decades. Nashik is home to big companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, ESDs, and many others. The main reason behind this is its location, Nashik is located in the center of 4 big cities Mumbai, Pune, Surat & Indore. With great connectivity to these cities and abundant availability of skilled labor makes Nashik a perfect choice for manufacturing. Even though Nashik is a good location for manufacturing plants, in the future for other departments like R&D, Kyte Energy will definitely explore cities like Pune. All three founders being born and bought up in Nashik would prefer this city as our Head Quarters. Apart from that, Nasik is also one of the fastest developing cities in India, and many automotive companies like Volkswagon, and Maruti is looking at Nashik for their manufacturing plant set-up.
What are the exciting future trends you see in the EV industry?
According to me the next exciting trends in the field of EV could be:
1.Integration of Artificial Intelligence & Internet Of Things is going to be a constant trend for at least the next 10 years.
2.Depleting Lithium Resources or Low Lithium Resources is pushing the whole industry away from Lithium. So the next big thing in this industry can be different chemistry batteries that are more reliable, Instant charge enabled, and abundantly available.
3.Uniformity and establishment of charging infrastructure are also going to be key focuses for the next ten years. As the charging infrastructure gets better, faster, and smoother will be this transition from ICE to EV.
4.Phase Change Material-Based Cooling Integration of machine and power electronics is another growing trend that is bound to continue. Powertrain equipment must become more compact as space requirements for vehicle comfort rise. As a result, the new integration approaches become increasingly crucial.
5.Replacement for rear earth metals used in traction machines.
How has Kyte Energy remained a bootstrapped venture?
The booming EV industry and overwhelming demand for our exceptional products are the key reasons behind Kyte Energy managing to remain bootstrapped to date. But soon Kyte Energy will be raising funds for its 2 upcoming revolutionary products. Both models will be incorporated with Kyte Energy’s patented technologies.
