Bengaluru, NFAPost: Wings EV, a VC-funded electric vehicle startup based in Indore and Bengaluru, won the best in category award for their flagship product Robin in the “NEVs, Mopeds and Bikes” category at the Micromobility Europe conference held in Amsterdam on June 8th and 9th, 2023.
Micromobility Europe is organized by Micromobility Industries, which is a global platform based in the US that champions small vehicles and their power to radically reshape our cities.
Wings EV, a VC-funded electric vehicle startup based in Indore and Bengaluru, had a global product unveiling of their unique electric microcar, Robin, at the event. Wings EV Robin is built from the ground up in India and is expected to launch in India later this year.
Robin, “the ultimate city ride”, is a fully covered compact two-seater four-wheeler that has the length and width of a motorbike. This allows Robin to drive and park anywhere a motorbike can. In this way, Robin combines a two-wheeler’s mobility with a small car’s safety and comfort, ideal for everyday driving in the city.
Robin is fully automatic, has a top speed of 60 kmph, and runs 90 kilometers on a single charge in regular city driving conditions. It has a LFP (Lithium Ferrous Phosphate) battery pack that charges in 4.5 hours from a standard 15A power socket, using its onboard charger. Robin does not require any expensive charging equipment. It will come in three variants and is expected to be available for order in India later this year.
Wings EV Cofounder and CEO Pranav Dandekar said Wings EV is committed to solving the traffic congestion problem in cities through deep, user-centered design and innovation.
“It is a great honour to receive this prestigious award for our first product, Robin. Winning the best-in-category award at Micromobility Europe gives us a great impetus to work on more groundbreaking mobility products for the Indian market,” said Wings EV Cofounder and CEO Pranav Dandekar.
He said the award, won by competing with other 60 world-class products, recognizes the talent and hard work of all at Wings EV. “I take this opportunity to congratulate every person who worked to fulfill our dream of bringing this mobility innovation to Indian cities,” said Wings EV Cofounder and CEO Pranav Dandekar.
Wings EV has been designing and developing this innovative concept since 2018. They built their alpha (initial) prototypes in 2021 and conducted extensive market research across 6 cities in India. The vehicle specifications and features are a result of deep insights into people’s mobility needs, their safety concerns with two-wheelers, and their problems with driving and parking a car in the city.
It has since built its pre-production prototypes that are undergoing testing and are about to be submitted to ARAI for homologation. Robin will be classified as a quadricycle (L7) and will require a registration and car driving license to drive.
About Wings
Wings EV was cofounded by Pranav Dandekar and his father Prakash W. Dandekar in 2018. It is funded by Venture Highway, a leading early stage venture fund in India, and several prominent silicon valley angel investors.
Before founding Wings, Pranav spent 15 years in computer science and AI in the US including obtaining a Ph.D. from Stanford, working at Amazon, and building and selling a VC-funded startup in Silicon Valley. Pranav moved back to India to work on this innovative EV that he believes will help solve our growing congestion problem.
Prakash is an electrical engineer and an IIT Bombay alumnus with deep expertise in industrial and automotive embedded systems. He is an entrepreneur, an academic, and an author. He spent several years as the Head of the Embedded systems group at Tata Technologies in the early 2000s where his team designed the electronics systems on some versions of the Tata Nano.
