Aniruddha Mysore Srinath’s Post

A longish note on gratitude and reflection. Today marks the end of my 8 year stint in the EV sector, across 3 of the 4 top EV 2 wheeler makers in India; Ather, Ola and TVS Motor. In retrospect, it was one of the best areas that one could aspire to work for in India and in the manufacturing domain in this time period and in my 30s. First, about TVS. Everything I had imagined TVS to be before I started here, came true and even amplified. Great teammates, a trust and values driven culture, obsession with customers, data driven problem solving and so on. It has been fulfilling to see the relentless hard work of so many colleagues take TVS to its rightful place on top of the EV 2 Wheeler market share leaderboard, a place I believe it will occupy for some time now. Immensely grateful to my leaders, specifically Aniruddha Haldar and Manu Saxena (pretty sure he’s inactive on Linkedin ) for the opportunities to contribute as well as my team, Sri Giri Raghavendra R and Malay Parikh for the work we did. And of course, the expansive ecosystem that was the EV team. Next, about the EV sector. I got involved in this space at around the end of 2017 when the big boys in the list were the likes of Ampere, Okinawa and Hero Electric. Not one of these are in top 5 today,not one of the firms which are in the top 5 now had started making and selling then. Enough and more has been reported in the media about this “Glamorous” sector but here are my key takeaways of what Greater good the work of all the makers in this sector has achieved. 1. Unlike the previous avatars of EVs which had proliferated in the time frame of 2010~2015 (mostly lead acid), the vehicles in this wave pitched to customers on performance and not cost. This has meant that the EV sector in India probably has the cutting edge in technology and features seen anywhere in the world, a pattern you do not necessarily see in other sectors. Additionally, the superfluous talk of the main selling point of EVs being good for the planet is now overshadowed by their rightful claim of just being better performing vehicles than their ICE counterparts. 2. The rise and rise of many startups in this sector has increased average pay of automotive engineers, a fact that needed correction for a long time. 3. The skill levels and problem solving abilities of Indian engineers and business leaders has multiplied multifold and I believe this will the start of many, many great product hardware companies emerging from India in different segments. 4. There has been an upgrading and upskilling in the entire Supply Chain to cater to the needs of these EV OEMs, a fact that will benefit other adjacent industries too. I’m immensely grateful to the EV sector and the many wonderful people I have crossed paths with in this journey. Some legendary bosses from earlier; Venki Padmanabhan, Thiru Srinivasan , Narayanan Krishnamurthy , Tom Ruble and Jose E Pinheiro 🙏🏻 On to the next adventure of growth and learning !