Tsuyo, a Delhi-based powertrain startup that recently tied up with China's CETL, a sister company of CATL, aims to develop 10kW to 600kW powertrains to support 1.5T to 40T load-carrying vehicles across different categories, including off-road applications. Besides passenger mobility, the company will also focus on tractors, mining application vehicles, backhoe loaders, excavators, and mobile cranes.
Speaking to Digitimes Asia recently, Vijay Kumar, Co-Founder of Tsuyo, explained his company's priority would be to work with CETL to provide solutions that adapt to the Indian market.
"We want to create a co-design and co-development setup through cooperation, collaboration, and corroboration in all aspects so that the product can be made reliable to the Indian conditions," Kumar said.
This is quite relevant because a burning question for Indian EV customers is whether the components made in other countries are suitable for Indian conditions. This issue made headlines recently after a couple of EV scooters caught fire, allegedly due to the rising summer temperatures.
Work in marine and aviation too
Tsuyo's deal with CETL would take the company beyond its traditional areas of operation. For instance, one of CETL's strong points includes marine applications. Kumar sees this as an opportunity as some Indian companies are working in this segment that could turn out to be potential customers.
"CETL is a pioneer in marine applications, and in India, we have requirements from two different companies in terms of water transportation, and we are planning to develop a platform for this," Kumar added. "We are also looking at the aviation sector, where there are transfer cars and airport buses."
The company has already done a prototype with CETL that is being tried out by three major OEMs. Kumar said they would like to provide the solution to vehicles like Tata Ace, Mahindra's pickup, etc., which would help these companies easily get into EV conversion and also come up with new vehicles in this category.
Cost-efficient design and implementation
A key advantage that Tsuyo offers is cost-efficiency, which is an important metric in the Indian market.
"We have a phase timeline and a timeline for different product introductions," Kumar said. One product that is already introduced – 15-kilowatt 96 volts and 15-kW 144 volt – is a platform we have already given to three different customers. Two more big automobile customers have demanded the 15-kW 96-volt product. Few special material selections like Co-Fe Alloy, non-conventional magnetic selection, and some unique cooling channels in the lamination are some key differentiators as well as ahead of market available products."
The company has designed an integrated gearbox, which means that the conversion of a vehicle like Tata Ace does not require removing a large number of parts. This not just makes the process hassle-free but also lowers the cost significantly.
"So, this is going to be a very costly-effective process where you can just put this motor with an added gearbox that is small and integrated with the motor," Kumar said. "This allows the gearbox multiplication to happen simultaneously, resulting in similar performance from ICE variants."
While this product is already prepared, the company is working on an application for 20 HP to 50 HP tractors that could come out in the next 8-10 months.
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