Hat's Off to India Again - Indo British Entry Wins First Electric Motorcycle GP Ever By a Big Margin

An Indian company manufacturing high quality electric motors and a British engineering group put their strengths together recently to win the world's first ever TTXGP. As Gizmag, one of the sites that this blog subscribes to points out, this was by a very good margin: http://www.gizmag.com/ttxgp-electric-agni-first-clean-emissions-grand-prix/11949/

Most significantly, wasthe fact that this was a class win for bikes that cost below UK Pounds 30,000, a significant factor because this means that the bike is capable of being produced and sold at realistic prices with economies of scale working out in production. That the bike also won the overall victory, attests to the excellence of the design as it is potentially capable of beating more expensive bikes designed in technologically advanced countries.

Again, I am as positive about this as I am about the Tata plans to build electric versions of their cars for India. However, I must admit to caution about the Indian state's ability to provide power through clean means and on an uninterrupted basis - eight hour powercuts in most cities throughout the day are not a good thing for this sector. Neither is the fact, as my friend Mohanakrishnan likes to point out, that Coal India is putting huge sums of government money into importing coal to satisfy India's requirement for power while the government pays lip service to the idea of renewable energy.

That said, if the private sector is given the relevant permissions to do something in India, they are more than capable of doing extremely well. Team Agni underlines this fact. Congratulations, Team Agni, and Congratulations India. There is another entry about this at the best online motorcycling blog, The Kneeslider at: http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2009/06/12/team-agni-with-rider-rob-barber-wins-inuagural-ttxgp/#comments Those who wish to congratulate Team Agni would do well to do this in The Kneeslider. I am sure they check there like most motorcycling enthusiasts do.