Altigreen Propulsion Labs: Making Transportation Greener in Emerging Economies

“The idea of a cleantech startup germinated four years ago to reduce emissions and the use of fossil fuels in transportation,” begins Amitabh Saran, CEO, Altigreen Propulsion Labs. Saran, an engineering veteran concerned about the growing problem of urban pollution in developing countries, was shocked when the Toyota Prius was launched in India at an alarming price of $60,000. With painstaking data collection in India and simulations run in the U.S. by Lasse Moklegaard, a control engineering expert, Saran conceptualized Altigreen to democratize hybrid-electric technology. “Even electric cars are not green,” says Saran, “Over 80 percent of electricity generation in developing countries is still from fossil fuels, mainly coal.” Considering the expense of charging infrastructure, poor availability of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), consumers’ awareness and other safety concerns, Saran, along with fellow industry veterans Moklegaard, Shalendra Gupta, and John Bangura, set out to build an aftermarket solution to address this growing global issue. “Petrol is expensive, diesel is harmful, CNG is not widely available, electricity is not green, and hybrid vehicles are expensive. This paved the way for a Hybrid Electric Kit to retrofit in existing cars to significantly increase fuel economy and reduce emissions,” expresses Gupta.

Building hybrid engines is a complex engineering task. It requires two main components—an electric motor to power the drivetrain, and a software based controller to switch between fuel, electric drive and charging modes. Designing it as a retrofit solution common to multiple vehicle classes and manufacturers, made the problem doubly complex. Altigreen’s kit has a proprietary motor-generator at its heart and integrated power electronics for torque assist and regeneration, with complex model-based control logic, as its brain. “Being a fuel agnostic solution, it works with petrol, diesel, and CNG engines. Further, our patented designs create a smaller form factor resulting in lower material cost, greater ease of installation and reduced space requirement,” articulates Moklegaard.