What Was Tork Up To Between 2016 And 2022?

Tork Motors made waves back in 2016 when it unveiled its first electric motorcycle, the Tork T6X. The company had announced the pricing and started taking bookings, and had also revealed that it would be introduced to select cities in Phase 1. However, as the months passed, the company soon disappeared into the background, and only in 2019 was the T6X spotted testing again. In our interview with Tork Motors’ CEO Kapil Shelke, he reveals the full story of what happened between 2016 and 2022.

Gauging public interest:

Kapil said, “When we started the bookings, or non-paid bookings, in 2016, we just wanted to gauge interest. Because in my head, there was still the question that everybody's building a scooter, I'm building a motorcycle, will people buy it?”

He continues, “It was a prototype unveil, but the prototype was close to a production version. People misunderstood that; they saw it as a vehicle that was ready for delivery. I think that that is the miscommunication that we had then. We were overwhelmed with the response; and then we said, “Oh, now we actually have to build it.” Then we only had the motor and the battery pack. We only had two or three prototypes. “

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The Tork T6X was unveiled back in September 2016, and was the country’s first premium, indigenously developed electric motorcycle. It was a product of seven years of hard work by the company, but things weren’t all that straightforward after they unveiled the motorcycle. 

The arduous, ambitious journey:

Doing the research and development, and making a well-functioning prototype is one thing but creating a large-scale plan of mass manufacturing is a completely different ball game. This is especially when you want to cater to the masses at a very competitive price point.

Kapil explains what exactly happened: “First, I think what we wanted to do was we wanted to build everything in-house. I don't know why. But at that particular point, there was no motor manufacturer, and we were rigid in terms of what we wanted. The benchmark in our head was that we wanted to build a motorcycle that did 100 kilometres per hour, 100 kilometres of true range, or ‘real world range’; and should be close to Rs 1.25-1.50 Lakh.”

“The first two are very simple, the latter part is very difficult. To achieve the price point, you have to make everything at scale, which is an enormous scale. Or you have to make everything in India because you don't want to pay import duties or other charges. For us IP (intellectual property) was very important, so we said “Let's build in India.”

We underestimated the effort that went into making the T6X production worthy. Our own internal benchmarks were very high. We didn't have a lot of capital to spend, so the only thing that we could spend then was time. But we couldn't negotiate with ourselves that we were not going to do a good job. I think that was the problem.”

And with the time in hand, Tork Motors set to work on improving its electric motorcycle. The company worked on testing the motors, battery pack, and cooling. Ultimately, the motor improved, they were able to use bigger cells for their battery pack, consequently increasing its capacity from 3.6kWh to 4kWh. Even the frame was tweaked to ensure it can be easily manufactured. The company was updating the electric bike every six months, and the results were quite evident in the test mule spotted in December last year. Kapil said, “So I think what we unveiled way back in 2016 was a prototype, now what you see (the Tork Kratos) is a very mature electric motorcycle.”