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Is this India s very first supercar? Oct

Is this India’s very first supercar?

India, meantime, has never produced a flashy supercar.

Sarthak Paul, a 21-year old entrepreneur, is attempting to switch that. The latest university graduate has embarked on a starry-eyed quest to produce India’s very first supercar, with help from a team of automotive engineers based at India’s Manipal Institute of Technology.

Paul calls his fledgling car company Mean Metal Motors (MMM). The automaker has already produced a duo of planned concepts, and if all goes well, Paul hopes the very first physical prototype will be ready for a showcase at the two thousand sixteen Paris Auto Demonstrate. He’s calling his creation the “M-Zero.”

Paul cannot be accused of lacking ambition. With an estimated price tag of $125,000 to $150,000, M-Zero aims to contest with the world’s fastest and most powerful cars.

The plans call for a supercar that can accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour in less than three seconds, and achieve a top speed of two hundred miles per hour. The mid-mounted engine will produce more than five hundred horsepower, and be partially powered by a hybrid electrified power plant.

The M-Zero will also feature a fingerprint system instead of keys, and permit users to create a “profile” that will activate their preferred driver settings. These include their beloved seat position, air conditioning settings and music playlist.

“We want to give them a car that’s exactly the same or can do even more than a Lamborghini,” Paul said.

On the subject of aerodynamics, Paul’s excitement is palpable.

“I was watching a random display in which they discussed how the world’s fastest sea animal [the sailfish] moves through air and water,” he said. “Then we thought, why don’t we just analyze why the fastest sea animal is the fastest?”

The figure of the car will utilize the startup’s newly-developed brainy material, called “carbo-flax”, which claims to be both lighter and one-tenth the price of carbon fiber. Paul said he hopes to sell the material to satellite companies in India in order to raise funds for the very first prototype.

Fund raising is just one of many potential roadblocks Paul faces. The Mean Metal Motors founder said that Indian venture capitalists “do not identify hardware startups as something they’d invest into.” They choose the software firms of Bangalore.

Murad Ali Baig, a popular author and automobile analyst with The Economic Times, has doubts about Paul’s “carbo-flax” funding strategy, and sees few other options for the company to raise capital.

Baig also pointed to the complicated engineering required to build a supercar.

“The very advanced engine and hybrid motor technology, and the successful mating to the suspension and assets is no plain matter and may need months or even years to debug adequately to make them safe on the roads,” he said.

Paul rejects to be discouraged, telling his company has acquired “the best automotive engineering talent in the country.”

“[Our success] would give a boost to people who want to do something in the hardware world,” he said.

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