Can Oben Electric Outrace Ola’s Roadster In The EV Motorcycle Race?

India’s motorcycle market is undergoing a gradual transformation with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs). While scooters have driven the EV fervour among Indians in the last three to four years, producing motorcycles has not been a priority for Indian EV manufacturers.

It is this white space that Oben Electric has emerged to solve with its flagship vehicle Rorr, which runs for nearly 190 km on a single charge and produces 8 kW or nearly 11 horses.

With Rorr, Oben Electric’s ambition is to give a tough time to legacy 100 cc to 125 cc motorbikes and their users the option to switch to a more affordable electric option.

Founded in 2020 by Madhumita Agrawal, Dinkar Agarwal, and Sagar Thakkar, Oben Electric’s Rorr, launched in 2023, locks horns with motorcycles like Hero Splendor, CD Deluxe or Bajaj Pulsar 125 and the ilk, and it seems that it has already started creating some stir in the market.

Rorr, whose full-fledged production and deliveries began just last year, has seen its vehicle registrations grow by almost 5X in the last seven months. Oben Electric, which offers three variants of its Rorr, makes for an interesting case study, especially at this point, more because India’s escooter market leader Ola Electric, too, has entered the fray with its Roadster series to catch the attention of Indian bikers. 

“There was an era of electric scooters, and now, I think this is the era of electric motorcycles. This is why so many big players are entering this market… And Oben already has a lead in the market, especially in the daily commuter segment, which will see the next big adoption,” cofounder and CEO Agrawal told Inc42.

Cranking Oben Electric In Motion

Little did the founders Madhumita Agrawal and Dinkar Agarwal know back in 2016 that they would ever pivot from running an R&D services and IP consulting company to floating an EV manufacturing unit, directly locking horns with legacy players like Honda, Hero, TVS, Bajaj, et al.

Interestingly, this has been quite an unconventional pivot for the founder duo, who were joined by their third cofounder, Thakkar, only after the inception of Oben.   

IIT Kharagpur graduates Madhumita Agrawal and Dinkar Agarwal cofounded their first company, IPexcel, in 2016. After running the company for five years, the Agrawal duo found their passion elsewhere.   

Backed by Dinkar’s experience of working with companies like General Electric early on in his career, the duo decided to suit up for an adventurous ride in the Indian EV space, and, therefore, founded Oben Electric in 2020. 

What came in handy was Thakkar’s tricks of the trade, who already hailed from the sector. Despite this, the founders found it hard to kickstart their EV OEM journey as the market was already flooded with deep-pocketed players. 

This led to the realisation that they would solve what no other player was solving. In a market inundated with EV scooters, the founders decided to focus on bikes.

“We realised that we were sitting in a huge motorcycle market yet the electrification was being led by scooters. There is a reason why escooters picked up in adoption initially. They were easily available in China, B2B picked up, and it was easy to convert a scooter customer compared to a motorcycle because motorcycles are complex products. So, we decided to solve this problem,” CEO Agrawal told Inc42.

After almost three years of working on R&D, Oben Electric got the approval for the product launch in 2023 and began the production of Rorr at a small scale. Its full-scale production began last year.

As per the CEO, Oben Electric sold 1,000 units last year. By March 2025, the startup expects to sell another 1,000 electric motorcycles. It currently has a manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 100K units.

The startup has raised INR 150 Cr so far and is backed by the likes of Stride Ventures, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), Ambis Holding US, Kuberans Ventures, Karimjee Group, and Mission Vertical Capital.

What’s worth noting is that Oben Electric claims to be among the only few EV players building all the high-cost and critical EV components in-house from scratch. 

Oben Electric’s Roaring Bet

Speaking with Inc42, the founders highlighted that while Hero Splendor and Bajaj Pulsar users are shifting to electric motorcycles primarily for cost savings, they also place a strong emphasis on design and aspirational value.

“Along with the cost reduction aspect due to zero reliance on petrol, the electric motorcycle market is also driven by design and performance,” Madhumita said, adding that since the livelihood factor also adds to it, there is no place for compromising on product quality.

Though initially, Oben Electric tried building its EVs using batteries and motors from third-party vendors, the products did not match the expectations that the team had for building Rorr.

This prompted the startup to develop its own motors, vehicle control units, and battery technology in-house while retaining proprietary vehicle design.

“One of the biggest differentiating factors of our battery technology is that we use lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) batteries while everyone else uses lithium nickel manganese (NMC) batteries. If you see all the electric cars, the likes of BYD are using LFP batteries, and we are the first to introduce LFP in two-wheelers. Having extensive R&D experience in the EV industry, we knew that this is the battery technology suitable for tropical climates like in India or Africa,” the founder said, adding that the company also makes its fast chargers in-house.

Even though the startup’s target customers are not the customers who prefer long rides, like those in the case of Royal Enfield riders, the company has tried to give its users relief from range anxiety.

According to the company, its fast charger is capable of charging the EV up to 80% in under 2 hours. The price of its vehicles ranges between INR 90,000 and INR 1.5 Lakh. 

Oben’s Road Ahead 

After establishing its foothold with its 22 stores in the country, including in major cities such as Delhi, Jaipur, Pune, Bengaluru and Kerala, Oben Electric aims to increase the store count to more than 100 by the end of this year.

Besides penetrating deeper into the existing cities, the startup plans to expand its presence to Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat by the end of the year. It is also eyeing selling 10,000 vehicles by the end of 2025.

Even though Ola Electric has entered the electric motorcycle market with its Roadster, Oben Electric is confident that the market opportunity is huge.

Besides, service is a crucial part of being able to consistently sell in the electric motorcycle market, which comes with strong in-house capabilities and not by using off-the-shelf components, the founders said. 

“First, each of our stores has a service centre. Then, we have experts from the industry who come from Yamaha and Revolt – who have seen the best and worst of both worlds. Besides, there are training processes and customer satisfaction score (CSAT) metrics that we follow to ensure top-notch customer service,” the CEO said.

With a strong in-house tech stack and after building a larger India story this year, Oben Electric has plans to expand internationally. In the near term, it is looking at the African and the UAE markets. The startup also plans to raise a $50 Mn institutional funding round later this year.

Oben Electric’s journey so far has been impressive, especially when compared to a few other startups such as Matter Motor, Odysse, and a few others, who have either failed to scale or have delayed launches. 

While the future looks promising, the entry of deep-pocketed players like Ola Electric in this segment may raise challenges for Oben Electric. Also, legacy players, too, are not far away from embracing electrification. Amid this, the key question is — Does Oben Electric have enough moat to grease its wheels?

[Edited By Shishir Parasher]