How much does it cost to go one Km on a usual petrol bike or scooter in India? Well in most cases the answer would be Rs. 1 or more per kilometer. But with a custom made scooter built on a Kinetic Blaze fitted with a customized diesel engine from Royal Enfield, its costs 60% lesser, which means about 40 paisa per kilometer. A group of Mechanical Engineering students from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore – Sanjay Bhushan , Tony Paul, Naveen V V and Nadeem Anwar- have developed this scooter.
They have taken a Kinetic Blaze scooter and used its chassis, transmission and other systems. Removed its engine and fitted a customized and downsized RE Diesel engine turned down from a 325 CC to 200 CC in displacement. With this frugal diesel engine with a mere 3.5BHP and high torque (not mentioned, we expect it to be between 12 to 18 Nm), these students were able to fetch a stunning 110 KMPL of Mileage. Since this is a college research project, you can’t buy one of these now, but in future, you may see some two wheelers inspired from this research in the Indian markets.
This particular scooter has been built with a cost of Rs. 72,000 and the cost can be significantly reduced in mass production. Such college research projects are the drivers for inspiration and innovation and may actually help automobile companies think about such products and their feasibility for Indian roads.
