In a recent interview, Rashmi Verma interacted with Anmol Bohre, Co-founder & Managing Director of Enigma Automobiles, highlighting the company’s structured approach to building sustainable, affordable EVs for India’s mass market. With over 70% of the population residing outside metros, Enigma’s focus is on tailoring vehicles to the predictable travel needs of non-metro consumers, typically 50–60 km per day. This insight enables practical product design with emphasis on durability, reduced running costs, and simplified maintenance.
The company’s growth philosophy is rooted in profitability and quality assurance, achieved through selective dealer partnerships and hands-on founder engagement. Currently, 80% of Enigma’s cost base is localized, with significant domestic sourcing across motors, wiring harnesses, and battery systems. Remaining challenges lie in raw materials and semiconductor availability, where Enigma advocates long-term ecosystem development.
Safety and regulatory readiness are prioritized, with batteries built using laser-welded cells and LFP chemistry to ensure compliance with AIS-156 Phase-2 and anticipated BIS norms. Additionally, Enigma is addressing affordability barriers through slim-margin pricing, NBFC-backed micro-finance options, and evolving models such as battery leasing, making EV adoption viable for first-time buyers and fleet operators alike.
By combining pragmatic design, localization, regulatory compliance, and innovative financing, Enigma Automobiles positions itself as a scalable solution provider for India’s evolving EV landscape.
1. What core design principles shape your EVs, and how are they tuned for Indian roads and climate?
“Durability and affordable financing, not flashy ads, win the non-metro buyer’
Our product decisions come from two simple realities: Indian non-metro buyers are pragmatic, and their daily use cases are predictable. More than 70% of Indians live outside major cities, and in those towns people typically travel about 50–60 km daily, a distance that makes home charging practical and reduces dependence on public fast-charging networks. So, we prioritise durability, low running cost and straightforward maintainability over glossy features.
2. How close are you to a fully indigenous powertrain, and what makes your localisation approach unique?
“About 80% of our cost is Indian, the last mile to 100% is about raw materials and chips.”
We’ve localised the major subsystems wiring harness, motor, battery packs and most of the control electronics are designed and sourced in India. The constraint today isn’t capability so much as economics: India lacks domestic supplies of some rare-earth materials and a mature, large-scale semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, which pushes up cost and limits efficiency compared with countries that have those upstream industries.
Today roughly 80% of our vehicle cost is sourced domestically and almost every component is produced in India except for a few specialised parts in the motor controller. Our approach is pragmatic maximise local content where it’s viable now, while supporting steps to scale domestic raw-material sourcing and chip production so fully indigenous, cost-competitive EVs become commercially realistic.
3. How are you growing while ensuring product quality and strong aftersales service?
“Selective, trust-based dealer partnerships plus founder-level involvement drive our quality.”
We prefer steady, profitable growth over aggressive expansion. Being bootstrapped taught us discipline: from day one our goal was to protect the capital we had and build a sustainable business, and that focus helped us remain profitable from year one. My co-founder Alankrit Bohre and I stay deeply involved in product decisions and operations to ensure what we launch is competitive on both quality and price.
Our dealer partnerships reflect that same selectiveness. Dealers choose to work with us because they trust our product and our brand promises it’s a relationship built on mutual credibility. Today we operate through 32 exclusive dealers and about 110 multibrand outlets partners who deliver the aftersales and service standards that keep customers loyal.
4. How are you preparing for upcoming AIS/BIS norms on thermal stability, fire safety, and BMS?
“Laser-welded cells + LFP chemistry = safety by design.”
We rely on manufacturing processes like laser welding for battery cells (which produces stronger, lower-resistance joints compared with spot welding) and use high-stability cells engineered for elevated-temperature performance. Our chemistry of choice is LFP, which offers far lower flammability risk and longer life than many alternatives.
On the regulatory side we are already AIS and BIS compliant — our vehicles meet AIS-156 Phase-2 — and our battery management systems are designed to exceed current requirements. We build with the next set of regulations in mind so that updates to AIS/BIS won’t require fundamental reworks of our products.
5. How are you making EVs affordable for first-time buyers in non-metro areas? Any financing or leasing tie-ups?
“Thin margins plus micro-finance and battery leasing make EVs reachable for first-time buyers.”
Affordability is central to our mission. We operate on slim margins intentionally so the retail price stays low. Our aim is mass accessibility, not premium markup. To lower the entry barrier we keep the cost structure lean without compromising reliability, and we partner with multiple NBFCs to offer micro-finance options tailored to first-time buyers.
We’re also exploring business models such as battery leasing and are in discussions with government procurement programs to accelerate fleet and institutional adoption in semi-urban and rural markets. Everything we do is about making the switch to electric practical and affordable for everyday users.