The Vision behind Numeros N-First EV: Exclusive Interview with head of Engineering S. Soundararajan

In the perennial pursuit to compete with the emerging trends in the market, manufacturers often fail to prosper a unique and distinct value. While a slew of brands in the market might suffer from such issues, Numeros doesn’t. In the recent past, News 24 had the chance to be present at Numeros’ N-First launch, where we sat down with S. Soundararajan engineering head at Numeros Motors, for an interview. During our colloquy, we asked him about the new launch and what Numeros has on the horizon for the future.

The N-First, your most recent launch, brings two distinct worlds together. It has elements of a bike—larger tires, an upright stance—and an EV scooter. EVs are known for ease of mobility, and bikes are often considered manly and robust and have a more pragmatic approach, if I may say so. Why did you think that it was necessary to bring these two diverse worlds together for a new offering?

“Okay, so mainly we targeted the young population in India, especially the age group of 18 to 35 years. And when we conducted our research, a lot of the feedback we collected was from females, especially the urban female riding community. We analysed that females generally face difficulty when riding vehicles in congested traffic locations—especially bulky scooters. They often find it difficult to navigate through traffic.

At the same time, they wanted the utility of a well-balanced scooter that could tackle patchy roads with ease. Hence, we decided that we would have to give the N-First a crossover scooter feel, which can help ladies balance the scooter and enjoy the ease of riding at the same time.

As a brand, we understand that with the N-First, we have stepped into a new dynamic, but we wanted to take that as a challenge with the mindset of how best we could serve the urban female riding community.”

One of the key elements that stood out was that the lower-end variants have liquid cooling, and the flagship variant has a different cooling apparatus. Why is it so?

“Each battery comes with a thermal management system. The technology varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. The one-kilowatt-hour battery pack has a thermal management system called phase change material. It means that the phase change material tries to extract the thermal heat from the cells and transfers the heat to the battery surface using phase change technology. The material changes its phase and then transfers the heat.”

“I mean, so does it have fins on the body itself or…?”

“It has fins on the body, but I am talking about the inside. From the cell to the body, some medium is required to transfer the heat. Generally, it will be an air medium—we don’t provide that here. Sometimes we use phase change material. So, we pack that area with a material that can easily extract the heat from the cell and then transfer it to the body of the battery. That is called the phase change material. So, that is provided in the 3-kilowatt-hour battery pack.”

“Because heat and extreme cold are the two biggest issues for EVs as they affect range quite profoundly.” – Exactly, exactly. And I must say, we have tested it very thoroughly for the same reasons —we took it to Jaisalmer and then to Ladakh as well.”

Why is there no sport mode on the lower-end models?

“Okay, the reason is that the sport mode comes with a 70 km/h top speed. In order to achieve that, we need to draw higher current from the battery. Typically, batteries are expected to discharge current at around a 1C rate. So, if you want to go to a higher speed like 70 km/h, you need to discharge the battery cells at a 1C rate. We were able to achieve that provision only in the top-end model—the 3-kilowatt-hour variant, which has a slightly heavier battery. So that is the reason we are providing the sport mode in the larger pack, and the normal ‘Eco’ mode in the lower-end models.”

What is the annual production capacity that you can put forth for the all-new N-First EV scooter?

“Our production volume capacity is around 70,000 vehicles annually. We have a 16-acre plant in Narsapura, where we can produce around 5,500 to 6,000 vehicles monthly.”

Are there any future plans for B2B affiliations or something like that?

“No, our focus right now—see, our first product, Diplos, we made primarily for the B2B sector. And from there, we have taken certain learnings. Now we want to place our market purely on the B2C side. So that is why our focus is on consumers only.”

“And also, one more thing which we wanted to say is that these variants are coming with dual-seat and single-seat versions. The single-seat version, if somebody wants to use it for small business purposes or for carrying goods, they can buy the single-seat version and use it for that kind of minor business activities.”

“So, I mean the N-First— is it possible to take the seat off and have a carriage?”

“Yes, on the rear side, we can do that.”

“So the single-seater option can be bought and used at the rear side as an empty space for loading.”

“I think that would be a great success for you, considering that the base model is only 64k- price at launch.”

“Exactly. So if somebody needs it for their business, they can go for the single-seater version.”

Localisation is a key factor here, and I just wanted to know—how localised is your production process? What are the ancillaries you are manufacturing here, and what are you putting together? If you could shed some light on it.

“So, this vehicle is 100% localised. All the components, systems, and subsystems—we are sourcing everything locally from India. In that perspective, it is a 100% localised product. Only for battery cells—our battery supplier sources them from China, and then the battery modules are made in India.”

“Okay, so only the battery cells come from China, the rest is manufactured in India.”

“Correct. All other things are happening in India.”

The N-first has been launched and users can choose between three models, namely the N-first Max, N-first I-max, and the N-first i-max + . Here’s how they stack up against each other.

Numeros N-First Specifications Comparison

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