To Throttle Or Not To Throttle -- BTS of Prototyping Electric Vehicles in India

Recap

In the previous article, I spoke at length about the idea behind LightSpeed Electric Bicycles, my motivations, and how we got to the point of prototyping.

In this article, I’m going to unravel the BTS of prototyping — not just a product, but the entire business all the way up to after sales.

Deep dive into prototyping

Once I had an MVP (minimum viable product) at hand, we knew it was time to take a step forward. I needed to see if it was possible to produce these e-cycles at a slightly larger scale. Could we successfully make 5, 10, 15 of these?

For us to be able to produce more e-cycles, what were the changes and alterations we’d have to make to the MVP?

We started creating multiple product prototypes: e-cycles with a mix and match of different components, highly feature-rich prototypes, prototypes with barely any features, and numerous versions that were between both extremes. We tested out every permutation and combination that we could.

Dexter’s laboratory

From the outside, we probably looked like a bunch of college kids on a project, chasing a farfetched theory. What we were actually doing was attempting to get to a ‘proof of concept’. Yes, the MVP worked and people enjoyed riding it, but a business needs more than just a good product to make good sales.

For weeks and months, I remember waking up every morning to head to the little workshop with a single-pointed agenda — constant, unceasing trial and error.

Through this process of trial and error, we made some crucial product related and component related decisions which made us stand apart from other players who had entered before us.

Several iterations were made to the e-cycle in terms of form, function, and utility, before we finalized the product tech specs, features, colours, and components.

The minutiae

Component selection, in itself, is a tedious and time-consuming process. We reached out to countless vendors in big cities, small towns, and hidden alleys, no holds barred.

Before we rolled out our e-cycles to the market, we needed to be sure of component quality, consistent availability, and warranties. Component quality was something we were inflexible about, because customer safety had to be the first priority.

?Every time we ended up with a prototype that we really liked, we made numerous people test ride it, and recorded their detailed feedback and critique. We took these notes back to the workshop and meticulously scrutinized every component and function. This process went on for a while, and I received some amazing insights from it.

For instance,

• We decided not to incorporate gears in the first couple of e-cycle models (something we had to address later on, by popular demand).
• We specifically selected connectors that would be easy for road-side mechanics to dismantle and re-join.
• ??In fact, we actually tested this out with road-side mechanics, not just in Ahmedabad, but also in other places. We would explain the process to them over phone call and see which connectors were easiest for them to work with.

Infusing logic into the logistics

I also had to start looking into the logistics of sending adult-sized electric bicycles from one city to another.

Each e-cycle had to reach the customer in top shape, undamaged, unscratched, and preferably, with the packaging intact.

This was far more difficult to achieve than you’d imagine.

I soon realised that it was nearly impossible to package and send the e-cycle from one city to another in a 100% assembled condition. And it wasn’t just cities that we wanted to cater to. The goal was to be able to reach the remotest parts of the country. If there was a willing customer anywhere in India, we wanted to be able to deliver our e-cycle to them.

Over time, we found a way to package and deliver our e-cycles direct-to-consumer in a 95% assembled condition, with detailed instructions for DIY assembly of the remaining 5%.

To DIY or not to DIY?

We even had to make provisions for those customers who weren’t enthused about the idea of DIY. We made the e-cycle easy to assemble for local road-side mechanics. Luckily for us, most customers were very keen on taking up the remaining 5% assembly as a DIY project. For them, I spent a good deal of time creating a detailed assembly manual and video tutorials. Our engineers also helped many customers via live video calls.

?Improving on product packaging to prevent damages in transit was another ongoing process we were constantly focussed on. The very best designers were eventually on-boarded for this, but more on that later.

?During this stage we created a preliminary functional website, made listings on existing e-commerce sites, including OLX, attended relevant exhibits and events with our prototypes, and even created a pretty neat explainer video because the concept itself was alien to most people. I was actively engaged in building relationships with prospective customers over countless phone calls. We were super hands on. At this point, we were going by the name Indium Design; LightSpeed was registered much later.

How to make the most of your prototyping process

• Iterate as much as possible; the more permutations and combinations you try, the better
• Talk to lots of different people from different walks of life and
• get their honest opinions
• Really listen to what they have to say
• What doesn’t work as a prototype, will never work as a finished product; know when to drop an idea and when to hone it
• Pay a lot of attention to research and data collection
• Deliberately damage components and put your prototype to use (within safe limits); see what happens

?My advice to everyone out there with a dream like mine would be to set aside a sizeable budget and time-frame just for trial and error. You owe this to yourself, to your business, and to your future customers.

One of our prototypes around which we eventually modelled GLYD