Tag Archives: automobiles

Event Report: CarWale.com CEO Mohit Dubey

(This is a live-blog of the TiE Pune talk by Mohit Dubey, Founder and CEO of CarWale.com. This is essentially an unorganized collection of interesting/insightful statements made by Mohit during his talk.)

  • “Carwale.com, the story so far: Started in 2005, seed funding in 2006, hit break-even point in 2007, series A funding in 2008, got acquired in 2010. So far, the website has served 3,12,68,180 people.”
  • “Nobody gave me a job. So I had to start my own company”
  • “I was never really good at coding. But I was good at jugaad, and co-ordination. I did an ecommerce course, but at the end I wasn’t good enough to create an ecommerce website. I convinced my teacher that she should do the website, and she would get a certificate of having worked on an industry project, which will help you in your career.”
  • “I am not a genius. I took a two-year drop but did not get into IIT. None of my colleagues in CarWale.com are geniuses. We’re all ordinary people. Who stayed together for a long time. Ordinary people + Years of effort together = Success.”
  • “If you have a purpose, it’s easier to find soulmates.”
  • “For two years, we kept trying to do tele-medicine. But that never really took off. In the meantime, we kept doing software work for anybody we could. Everything we did failed. Co-founders never complained, because we had a relationship.”
  • “Commitment is more important than competence. Sticking together is more important.”
  • “‘We’ll pay you whatever we can pay, whenever you can pay’ was the salary offered to Gaurav.”
  • “In 2005, I went to Bombay to figure out what to do. I told my team to give me 2 months to figure something out. Otherwise we’ll close down the company. I got a Rs. 10000 contract to build a website for a used car dealership. I spent 3 months understanding the business. My team wondered why I was spending 3 months for a Rs. 10000 contract. But the software that we built for the used-car dealership, we started selling to other used-car dealerships. At this point, I was given the advice that I was trying too many things, and wanted to do everything. I should focus. So I decided that I would focus only on automobiles. And thus CarWale.com was born. My team (8 people) disagreed with me, but I decided that they were wrong.”
  • “I sold the software to 30 dealerships. And after a while realized that none of them were using the software to sell cars. We decided that something was wrong. And changed the model within 10 days. We decided to take it to the customers directly ourselves.”
  • “Done is better than perfect. If you launch a product and it is bug-free, you waited too long to release it.”
  • “The purpose is fundamental. The purpose helps you get the right time. Cash? Go to spouse, parents, relatives, friends. If you can’t get money from them, how will you get it from strangers? Also HNIs and Angels. Everybody who was rich in Bhopal, I approached them for money. You need to be able to do that.”
  • “For funding purposes, we made a 60-page business plan. But with the strategy changing every 2 weeks, it was difficult to keep the 60 pager updated. So we went down to 5 pages, and even that was a problem. So we brought it down to 2 pages. What worked? 5 line email which resulted in a reference; and the reference really did it.”
  • “Everything takes longer. 2x or 3x. So stay optimistic about building a valuable company, not about the launch, or hiring, or a big client, or funding, or anything specific.”
  • “Things can change quickly. When that happens, we don’t wait for a weekly meeting, or a monthly meeting, or a big company meeting to decide. We have a quick huddle, and take a decision”
  • “These are the four core values of our company: 1. Treat Others Well. 2. Be Responsible. 3. Be Agile. 4. Company Before Self. These should be qualities you already have before we hire you. These are more important than ‘standard’ things like customer satisfaction.”
  • “By 2020, one of the world’s top 3 online auto companies is going to be from India.”
  • “We had no cash in the bank. I remember going to a dealership one day with no money, and I was thinking that I must make a sale today, and ask them to pay some money in cash upfront. That sort of a situation really helps focus your efforts.”
  • “To share equity in the company, I had a very simple method. Early in the company, you have no clue which co-founder is going to be most important. And the guy with the idea does not deserve more equity – the idea is not important, at all. The best answer is distribute equity equally. You’ll get better commitment that way. For early employees, the people who join the company within the first 6 months, I allocate 7.5%. A total of about 20% to be allocated to all your employees.”
  • “Today if someone wants to create an online store, there is no need to do a website. Just create a facebook page.”
  • “When writing content, focus on the user. Do SEO and SEM, but write content for the user, not for Google.”
  • “There are very, very few tech companies that need to operate in stealth mode. Everybody else should stop being secretive and talk about their idea in full detail with VCs etc. Your execution, your company culture, your method of hiring, cannot be copied. Startups have a DNA which allows them to move very fast and take decisions quickly. Big companies cannot do that.”

TiE Pune My Story session with Mohit Dubey CEO/Founder of CarWale – 3 June

TiE Pune presents a “My Story” session with Mohit Dubey, CEO and Founder of CarWale on 3 June, 6pm to 8pm, at MCCIA Trade Towers, Pune. Carwale is one of the few dotcom and “ecommerce” success stories by and Indian company for Indian customers – and hence should be a must for anyone in India interested in web technologies.

CarWale is a platform where car buyers and owners can research, buy, sell and come together to discuss and talk about their cars. CarWale was founded in 2005, and by 2010 it had become India’s single largest source of car sales.

After completion of his MBA and spending the first three years of his career in a start-up, Mohit took the entrepreneurial plunge with an initiative aimed at building the concept of telemedicine in remote villages. Post that, he ventured into delivering customized software. In 2005, while creating software for a car dealership, Mohit saw the frictions in car buying and founded CarWale.com.

Today, CarWale is South Asia’s leading car portal and acknowledged as the market leader in its space. Backed by India’s leading early stage venture capital firm Seedfund and top tier US venture fund Sierra Ventures, and with over 2.4 million visits a month, the portal is way ahead of its nearest rival launched by Times of India. It has influenced approximately $3 billion of car transactions in India and has won many prestigious awards including the Red Herring Asia Top 100, BusinessWeek’s Top 25 young entrepreneurs in Asia and PCWorld Web Award for best automotive website.

Carwale.com offers a complete consumer-focused service that includes content and tools for exhaustive research, pricing and marketplace information. As consumers research and make purchase decisions, the portal connects them with automotive manufacturers, finance and insurance companies, allowing them to make the best decisions for their automotive purchases. CarWale also offers more than 400,000 pages of car research, tips-advices, road-tests etc.

It has also what could be India’s first used car and new car price guide. It provides the on-road price of almost all cars being sold in 300+ Indian cities. It also serves 8,000 used car value checks every day. The ‘Recommend Me A Car’ feature is used by more than one thousand new car buyers every day. From 500 used car listings in Oct’ 05, the portal today has around 15,000 listings. CarWale offers more than 400,000 pages of car research, tips-advices, road-tests etc.

About TiE Pune My Story Sessions!

“My Story – Inspiring Journey of an Entrepreneur”

This program is created to celebrate entrepreneurship and bring stories from successful entrepreneurs in their own words. The invited speakers will share their entrepreneurial journeys and talk about lessons learned, mistakes they wish they avoided, and key decisions that helped make their venture successful.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here

Interview with Anup Sable: KPIT Cummins/Bharat Forge develop hybrid car technology in Pune

Ever since Toyota introduced the Prius in the 1990s, hybrid vehicles have become an exciting new development area in the Auto Industry. With ever increasing fuel prices and environment concerns, hybrid technology will increasingly play an important role in the automobile of the 21st century.

Hybrid vehicles use a combination of power from an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. The electric motor is powered by a battery, which is typically charged during braking and decceleration. The battery can also be directly charged from an external electric source (these vehicles are known as ‘plug-in hybrids’). Hybrid vehicles typically deliver significant double digit savings in fuel economy and emissions.

Last week Pune based KPIT Cummins and Bharat Forge announced a joint venture for the design and development of a plug-in hybrid solution. PuneTech interviewed KPIT Cummins SVP, Anup Sable, to get more details about this ….

You announced a joint venture with Bharat Forge last week in the exciting new area of hybrid vehicles. Can you explain the new solution that you are planning to develop?

The hybrid solution developed by KPIT Cummins is a plug-in parallel hybrid solution that consists of the following key components:

  • Electric motor
  • Electronic motor controller
  • Battery pack
  • Mechanical assembly & coupling
  • Proprietary software for control algorithms of the motor & batteries
  • Intelligent battery management system that enhances battery performance and battery life

Overview:

  • Plug-in: The batteries used in the solution can be charged from a standard external electricity source such as a domestic power outlet.
  • Parallel hybrid: The motor and engine work simultaneously at all times. The vehicle will, at no point, work like an EV (electric vehicle) only and hence will continue to operate as a conventional fuel vehicle if the batteries are fully discharged. The solution is battery-agnostic, in other words, it can be adopted to work with various types of batteries such as lead acid batteries or Lithium Ion batteries. The tests were performed using a lead acid battery based solution. The solution works without any interaction or interference with the existing Engine Management System (EMS) of the vehicle. The system is thereby also adaptable to vehicles without EMS and without electronic engines. It requires low maintenance and has a reliable three phase AC induction motor.

11 global patents have been filed in areas such as integrated system, motor design, motor mounting, and control system and battery management.

Is this a full-fledged hybrid vehicle you are building, or a sub-system that will be sold to Auto OEMs?

Our solution can be retrofitted in every car – new and used. Small, mid-size and large. This will not be a complete vehicle that we build.

Can you talk about the advantages of plug-in hybrids over other conventional hybrids?

Benefits:

  • Doesn’t interfere with Manufacturersâ in-vehicle systems
  • It is battery chemistry agnostic
  • Is compact yet delivers high peak power
  • Fuel efficiency improvement of over 40% as observed during tests at ARAI. The solution however provides 60% to 80% improvement during city driving conditions & above 50% during highway driving.
  • Solution is capable of reducing GHG emissions by over 30%.
  • Since the consumption of fuel will go down on account of the hybrid solution, the government would be able to save through the reduction in subsidy and foreign exchange outflow.
  • Retro-fitment of this solution can be expeditiously done in 4 to 6 hours.
  • Solution does not require additional infrastructure investments from the government.

What markets do you see for this technology?

After-market, vehicle owners & OEMs

What unique capabilities does KPIT and Bharat Forge bring to the table?

The technology for this intelligent plug-in, parallel, full-hybrid solution has been designed and engineered by KPIT Cummins, while the solution for automobiles would be manufactured through a joint venture (JV) between Bharat Forge Limited and KPIT Cummins Infosystems Limited. As part of the joint venture, KPIT Cummins will license the technology to the JV while Bharat Forge would bring in its manufacturing, assembly & integration expertise to the JV. The solution will be marketed to OEMs and fleet & individual vehicle owners through a network of certified and authorized dealerships

A general question – how do you see the future of embedded electronics space evolving in the next few years?

The embedded electronics space will see growth in its application in the Indian Vehicles at a rate faster than what happened in Europe, US and Japan. The key difference between application of electronics in the vehicle in Western world and in India would be that in western world it evolved with the advances in technology(and regulations) but in India it will be driver by market demand at the appropriate price.

About Anup Sable – SVP, Automotive and Allied Embedded and Tools, KPIT-Cummins

Click on the photo to see Anups Linked-in profile
Click on the photo to see Anup's Linked-in profile

Anup heads the Automotive line of business which is a leading product engineering partner to the automotive industry.

He is responsible for managing relationships with customers and helping them to globalize & standardize efficiently. He has been instrumental in creating a robust delivery ecosystem which supports clients in bringing complex technology products and systems faster to markets.

Passionate about technology in cars, Anup began his career as a research engineer at the Automotive Research Association in India (ARAI). He joined KPIT Cummins as a software engineer in 1994. With over 15 years of experience in the field of automotive electronics, Anup has played a key role in setting up the Automotive Electronics practice at KPIT Cummins.

Anup has done his engineering from Government College of Engineering, Pune.

Pune – The birthplace of the Nano, and the automotive capital of India

The interior of the Nano.
Image via Wikipedia

Normally, PuneTech covers mostly software technology. However, today, we feel an exception is warranted. The Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, which could change the world, was designed entirely in Pune. On this occassion, Amit Paranjape, a proud Punekar (and also chief evangelist of PuneTech) wrote this article on his blog, about the achievements of Pune in automotive technology. It is reproduced on PuneTech with permission.

Today, India and possibly the entire automotive world commemorate the customer launch of the ‘Nano’ – the world’s cheapest car. The brainchild of the Indian corporate legend Ratan Tata is finally available to the Indian consumer. I am sure that the Nano will raise a whole bunch of debates around urban traffic-management issues; but today is not the time for those. Today is a time for celebration!

Pune too celebrates this historic occasion; but I am not sure how many Punekars realize the significance of Pune’s role in creating this and other automotive history in India.

The Nano was completely designed and developed at the Tata Motors facility in Pimpri-Chinchwad Pune. The initial manufacturing will also be carried out here.

An Auto-rickshaw in Mumbai.
Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a brief list of Pune’s key automotive achievement over the decades. (In each of these milestones, Pune has played a pivotal role)

  • 1950s-60s: One of India’s earliest and most iconic automotive brands – Bajaj Scooter.
  • 1970s: India’s first moped (quite literally a motorized, pedal-based cycle that ran on a tiny 50cc engine) Luna.
  • 1970s: One of the first (and most successful) Auto Rickshaws: Bajaj Auto-Rickshaw.
  • 1980s: Manufacturing of India’s first automatic (non-geared) scooter: Kinetic Honda.
  • 1990s: India’s first fully indigenous car: Tata Indica.
  • 2008-09: Launch of world’s cheapest car: Tata Nano.

You can also add the development of India’s most popular Truck-Line to this list. Pune also leads the nation in various automotive suppliers, ancillary units and industrial equipment.

  • India’s biggest, one of the most innovative and world’s 2nd largest forging company – Bharat Forge has been at the forefront of this pack.
  • India’s largest Diesel Engines & Generator Manufacturer – Cummins has been active in Pune’s industrial landscape since the 1960s.

Research and Software for Automotive Engineering also have strong presence in Pune.

  • It’s no coincidence that all major global CAD/CAM software and services companies have significant presence in Pune: Ansys, AutoDesk, Catia, Geometric, PTC and UGS-Siemens. I doubt if there’s any city in the world that has the presence of all these entities! (See all PuneTech articles about Computer Aided Design at http://punetech.com/tag/CAD -ed)
  • ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) based in Pune, is the premier automotive research institute in India, that is responsible for research and testing & certification of every vehicle model on Indian roads.

I am confident that in the coming decades, Pune will continue to innovate and be at the forefront of automotive engineering in India, and the world.

So now remember – next time you see a Nano on Pune Streets (traffic jams not withstanding), it is as ‘Puneri’ as the ‘Puneri Pagdi’ or ‘Chitale Bakarwadi’!

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