Mumbai-based Strom Motors will be participating in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2020, to be held at Las Vegas, the USA from 7th to 10th January 2020. Strom Motors will showcase the R3 electric vehicle at the show at venture capitalist firm Motwani Jadeja’s pavilion, the first-ever India pavilion at what is one of the world’s biggest technology shows.
The Strom R3 is a three-wheeled two-seat electric vehicle that the company unveiled in India back in April 2018 in its early prototype form. 37-year old Pratik Gupta founded the company along with Jean-Luc Abaziou in 2011 and it was involved in several R&D projects in India and the US. They discovered that electric mobility has the potential to make a major positive impact on the environment in urban cities of India. Their surveys showed that average occupancy is 1.6 persons per passenger car in cities and most trips are under 50 km, realizing the need for compact personal mobility solutions, divulged Pratik Gupta in a discussion.
The Strom R3 will come with a climate control system, 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system, keyless entry, parking assist, reverse camera, power windows and 3-point seatbelts. Other features include customisable user interface, voice control, FM/USB system with optional 20 GB onboard music storage, maps + navigation support and data connectivity option. The vehicle currently does not have airbags.
The Strom R3 is expected to be priced at Rs. 4 lakhs ex-showroom with bookings to be open in February 2020 and deliveries set to begin in the second half of 2020. Expected to have a range of 200 km, the R3 will have a 4G compatible diagnostic engine that lets the user track the location of the vehicle and charge status and get information about the health of motors, brake pads and electronics. The system also continuously tracks the driving habits and the road conditions with the help of machine-based navigation engine. This data is used to help the other Strom users about bad roads and offer smart insights and actionable inputs.
Gupta expects R3 users to charge their cars overnight and begin every morning with a full range and feels that users waiting at public charging points for 30 minutes to an hour is unlikely. The vehicle takes about three hours to reach full charge when plugged into the household 15A plug point.
