Electric air taxis and hyperloop are cheaper and closer than you think: Prof Satya Chakravarthy, IIT-Madras

Chakravarthy spoke to indianexpress.com on his startups, the need to leapfrog in the tech sphere without large scale infrastructure, issues with the space tech startup ecosystem in India, and whether academics make for good entrepreneurs. Edited excerpts:

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you explain your idea of ‘defrastructure’ and how exponential technologies can be used to leapfrog, without a dependence on large infrastructure.

Satya Chakravarthy: ‘Defrastructure’ is not something new. This has happened in the past too. Cellphones are a good example of ‘defrastructure’, where we get the benefit of a phone without a landline infrastructure. Same is the case with water filters at home, without the huge investments in purifying water at source. UPI is another good example without investments in point of sale equipment or infrastructure. Electronic voting machines are another good example of such tech.

What we are trying to solve is to bring about exponential tech in the mobility and energy sectors in the country. What is the use of building huge roadways, metro lines when we can have smaller electric air taxis. The whole idea is that the developed world has had a journey of industrialisation and if we need to move ahead, we cannot follow their path fully. They would have built the ecosystem to their advantage. They have invested a lot in infrastructure and obviously it is a sunk cost and they would want to leverage the same. We need to be disruptors, not followers, and we need to look at tech that is exponential in its impact and which will put us ahead of the curve. We cannot keep building what they built 20 years ago.

You must understand that a lot of tech trends are converging for such scenarios of disruption, say with miniaturisation and digitalisation of tech which is opening up opportunities to build tech products and solutions in a different way. From a large scale, we need to move to small but many.

Chakravarthy is also the founder-CEO of ePlane co, an Urban Air Mobility startup. (Express photo)

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us about the companies you are advising and the impact they are likely to have?

Satya Chakravarthy: I am a founder/mentor and co-founder to many startups and for some of them I am merely an advisor.

Agnikul Cosmos, where I am the co-founder, is building launch vehicles capable of taking micro and nanosatellites to Low Earth Orbit, on-demand, and it is showing a lot of promise and would have a huge impact, though it might take some time to scale up.

ePlane co, where I am the founder-CEO, is an Urban Air Mobility startup and could soon become India’s first flying electric taxi startup, planning to provide 10 times faster intra-city commute and cargo transport. This, I think, would take off sooner than expected.

GalaxEye, where I am the co-founder, is building the world’s first multi-sensor imaging satellite, and these indigenously built satellites will enable governments and industries to perform advanced geospatial analyses for all-time, all-weather imagery from space, even during night and with cloud cover.

Aerostrovilos, where I am the co-founder, manufactures micro gas turbines which can electrify long distance trucks where battery tech might not be a suitable solution for a long time to come. The trucks form only 3-5 percent of road presence globally but contribute 40-50 per cent of road transport pollution. Our mission is to electrify these trucks.

Another startup, X2Fuels, is an early-stage tech startup working to convert agri-residues, plastics, bio-organic wastes and municipal solid wastes into storable liquids and solid fuels, which can be integrated within a refinery infrastructure

Newtrace’s line of electrolyzers is based on a revolutionary new technology offering green hydrogen production with lower capex costs. These systems are modular and scalable, making them suitable for various applications.

Apart from these, I also mentor hyperloop startups, Avishkar Hyperloop and TuTr Hyperloop.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: You have earlier said that many space startups are coming in without proper scientific validation. Can you explain?

Satya Chakravarthy: We have a lot of fanciful startups that are coming up in the space tech arena, but without the required knowledge or expertise. They want to solve problems like manufacturing in space, docking of vehicles, refuelling of satellites in space, changing the orbit of the satellites, etc. These are interesting and real problems to solve, but one must understand that ground testing has limited relevance when it comes to space-related issues. Most of this testing needs to be done in space and not on the ground.

It is not that these ideas are irrelevant but the issue is what is the proof of concept for solving such problems. Moreover, Space, the world over, is government-run and government-controlled to a large extent. If government agencies which are aware of these challenges and with huge funding have not resolved them, one wonders how a startup with no access to space could resolve the issue. These are great ideas on paper, which might not see the light of the day.

I think that such ideas get generated because space tech has few buckets of investments like launch vehicles, or satellites or ground equipment and there are many startups in these segments now. So others are forced to come up with new fanciful ideas without validation.

Chakravarty mentors hyperloop startups, Avishkar Hyperloop and TuTr Hyperloop.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us about innovations in space tech which will have substantial impact on education, health and agriculture.

Satya Chakravarthy: With geospatial mapping now giving a higher level of resolution even to the extent of half a metre, we are going to see more precision agriculture. Add such precision with deep learning, things are going to change dramatically.

With health, it is in the realm of impact on public health or large health providers with an increase in the speed of data that could be transmitted through satellites. Remote locations would also benefit.

With education, it would all be under 6G and the tech would plug all the holes in the cell phone towers and the access to satellites would be seamless. So, it would all lead to easier and faster access.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: You have an experience of being an academic and founder/CEO. Do academics make good entrepreneurs?

Satya Chakravarthy: Yes and no. I have seen entrepreneurs who are very academic and academics who are good at solving the tech problems but poor at understanding the economics of the solution. The tech entrepreneur or the academic-minded founder has the added burden of clarifying whether a tech solution is needed at all and, if available, would it be cheaper. If a mere business innovation is sufficient where is the necessity for a tech intervention. Solutions need to be light both on the planet and the pocket.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: How is your ePlane venture doing? When can we expect flying taxis to take us around in India?

Satya Chakravarthy: We are looking at a launch time frame of two years for sure. It would not be launched in crowded cities but in tourist areas and perhaps the Himalayas. There are a large number of regulations, but they are not hurdles. The electric vertical take off and landing taxis would have a range of around 100-200 kms, and would land and take off in approved sites, with an optimal size of 8×8 metres. The air taxi would be a four seater (pilot plus three) and would ideally cost 1.5 to 2 times the Uber fare.

You can also view it as an electric helicopter with a smoother ride, but globally, helicopters have not taken off in a big way. High maintenance costs and capex are seen to be the reasons for the poor performance. One exception is the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil which has a peculiar terrain and where there are around 300 helicopters. Electric helicopters are not flying as air taxis anywhere in the world. But what we are trying to do is make it much, much cheaper than a normal helicopter.

“There are hyperloop testing happening across the world, and it is certainly not at a very advanced stage,” Chakravarthy says. (Express photo)

Venkatesh Kannaiah: As the co-founder of TuTr Hyperloop, can you tell us how close are we to travel on a hyperloop system in India?

Satya Chakravarthy: If everything goes according to our plan, we should be looking at 2030 for hyperloop to take off; and if things are a bit delayed it might be around 2035. The passengers would sit in a pod which will be placed in a fairly large tube which can go either underground or overground. It would be like an aircraft cabin with pressure control and would travel at 600 km per hour. It would cost perhaps Rs 1500 per person to travel the 600 km distance and would cost $10-15 million to lay one kilometre of hyperloop infrastructure.

There are hyperloop testing happening across the world, and it is certainly not at a very advanced stage. We are working with the Indian Railways to test the concept to a distance of 400 metres. This would be a kind of showcase and the next stage would be to go in for a 2-10 km implementation and then the full distance.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Are you not overly optimistic given the Indian conditions?

Satya Chakravarthy: Perhaps you are underestimating the speed at which some technologies are progressing, and how it is becoming much cheaper. Moreover, we must understand that we must make use of such exponential tech to leapfrog. Not doing so, would be missing a great opportunity. Adoption of hyperloop tech might finally be a strategic bet, based on opportunities and challenges.