My Car Tech Startup Just Reached $14M/Year

Gorazd

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Published: July 8th, 2022

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Gorazd

Founder, Elaphe Propulsion Technologies Ltd.

$1.2M

revenue/mo

Founders

150

Employees

Elaphe Propulsion...

in-wheel.com/en

from Ljubljana, Slovenia

started October 2006

$1,200,000

revenue/mo

Founders

150

Employees

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Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hi, my name is Gorazd, and I’m the founder of Elaphe.

Elaphe Propulsion Technologies Ltd. has significantly changed the design of cars and other vehicles. By providing a new platform including in-wheel motors and all other multiple-wheel drive enabling electronics HW and SW, now carmakers have what they were dreaming for. The car does not need to be designed around the propulsion system - it can be user or mission-focused.

Of course, this is related to electric vehicles, not fossil fuel powertrains. Elaphe has designed electric motors that fit inside wheels and deliver the torque to accelerate a vehicle from 0 to 100km/h in 3s, electronics that control each of the wheels with milliseconds of delay. No gears or transmission is needed. Wheels are the only rotating parts.

It got the attention of all key traditional carmakers and Elaphe is working with all key new carmakers.

The best fit of the Elaphe in-wheel technology has been recognized for high-performance distributed drives for electric or hybrid CUVs and SUVs, sedans, pick-up trucks, people-movers, and extremely low energy demand vehicles. Elaphe focus is on providing the whole in-wheel system (motors, inverters, control unit, and other electronics).

We have doubled the turnover from 2020 to 2021 to 15 million EUR and have a decent 4 million EUR EBITDA, but the most important is to deliver solutions that the market and the environment need.

Our technology is an enabler of vehicles on the road. Just some of the vehicles that challenge the status quo (and have Elaphe in-wheel solutions) are:

Aptera Motors with their NeverCharge vehicle; an efficient and aerodynamic three-wheeler.

Elaphe and Lightyear together developed the most efficient production powertrain in the world - with 97% efficiency.

Lordstown Motor’s Endurance, the first pickup truck, powered by Elaphe in-wheel motors.

Capgemini Engineering’s (ex Altran) autonomous 3-wheeler vehicle, called REMOTIS. It has 3 in-wheel motors and is controlled by a cloud-based ECU.

And many, many more…

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I never thought I would be an entrepreneur. I was interested in physics and mathematics. But when completing my astrophysics master's degree research on Active galactic nuclei, using the Hubble space telescope, I realized that I want to do something helpful for humanity in the shorter term. I was lucky to meet Andrej Detela, who was developing direct-drive in-wheel motors for Electric Vehicles (EVs) since the end of the 1980s and I saw my possible contribution in dedicating time and efforts to such this technology.

How did I meet him? I read a newspaper article about his vision. I guessed his e-mail and he politely responded so we met in a few days. We found a good fit and didn’t lose any time, we started to work during the first meeting :) Andrej convinced me with his deep understanding of physics and ability to derive complex models describing the behavior of magnetic fields and other characteristics analytically. On a blank sheet of paper, not using computer CAE or other simulation. In the past and the future I have met several innovators, who lacked this deep understanding of physics - so their inventions were either not new or destined to fail due to poor performance. I enjoyed the systematic scientific approach merget with high ethics standards and very positive ambition.

After meeting Andrej I realized that multiple in-wheel drives make a lot of sense for the new generation of electric vehicles. It looked like something worth investing the time and effort in. Of course, I thought we will develop the product much sooner and solve the World in optimistically 5 and pessimistically 7 years. It took much longer, but I am happy to have the opportunity on this path.

Now, 20 years later, our team of 150 smart and motivated people is changing the architecture of electric vehicles and enabling truly user and mission-focused vehicles. Our in-wheel motors can reach 1650 Nm each or over 600 kW in a 4-wheel drive configuration. Imagine - the moving parts of propulsion are only inside the wheels of an electric car.

Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.

The most important is to have great innovation, derived from basic physics to go beyond state-of-the-art. Many have tried to develop an in-wheel technology that would work and be competitive and many have failed. It is not about the idea, it is about the science and development process behind it. FEM simulation is not enough. Scaling some solutions from other applications doesn’t work as well. You simply need to go step by step from the foundations and develop what is needed.

A lot of validation was done. Automotive is all about having reliable and safe solutions.

This is from the ZalaZone test track:

Validation in three consecutive winters in Asia:

And this is a set of testing for reliability on different benches and environmental chambers.

The team started with 2, now, we have 150+ team members and are still growing.
Below are the photos from the early days.

Gorazd Lampič and Andrej Detela, co-founders

Early Elaphe team (the year of 2015)

Describe the process of launching the business.

Well, we took a scientific approach combined with some excellent strategies taken from books like “Build to last”, “Innovators Dilemma” and “Innovators Solution”, “Zero to one”, “Blue Ocean strategy”, “Crossing the Chasm”, “Why” and similar masterpieces.

It was a lot of hard work, spread across a long period, and with the full dedication of the complete team. I am not sure if I am in a position to give good advice. If you follow our path - it won’t be easy. We have simply used all available resources to finance our business, learn what was needed, build relevant equipment, and proved the benefits to the market.

Part of our GTM activities is nicely explained by our COO, dr. Matej Bicek;

Being part of the European Scientific and developing community was an important part for us. It enabled us to get around 25 to 30% of the revenue in the early years. We are members of EGVIA and EPoSS for a long time to shape EU EV and sustainability policies.

It was important to grow together with our customers. This is the best win-win situation if you find a good fit.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

In our case in the automotive and electronics industry, it is not so much about the website and the way of promoting the technology. It is more about the really good solution, development and quality processes, and personal trust and relationships within the ecosystem. This is really of paramount importance. You have to listen to your customers and evolve in the direction of their needs. It is always good to be one step ahead.

This is one of the examples of explaining the technology together with vehicle maker - Aptera in this case.

Or a presentation by Lordstown about Elaphe technology on their pickup truck:

In general, it is about the Elaphe way:

A lot of efforts have been made to introduce the technology to the automotive player - OEMs and startups, and research institutes. We also work on European-funded projects, specifically about applying in-wheel motor solutions to new prototype vehicles. It is all about establishing long-term relationships and credibility. Being very approachable, actionable, and reachable opened many doors. We are internally motivated to influence transportation for a greener planet and it shows.

Some of the latest success stories:

Leinter and Elaphe and their ropeway story
Elaphe gained 7 million euros as support from the Slovenian government

In our marketing, we focus on presenting Elaphe as a developer and manufacturer of #1 in-wheel motors in the world, while also developing power and control electronics.

We attend different fairs (CES 2022, Battery Show Europe, Battery Show USA; Electronica, etc.). We focus on content generation that we distribute on our social media channels, in-wheel.com website, newsletters and more.

Some of the most performing posts of 2022:

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

For the automotive industry, we are not yet a big player, but our impact is significant already. To a large extent directly, but at the same time also through partners and customers.

To give you some numbers. Elaphe team is over 150 skilled people strong and last year’s turnover was above 15 million EUR. This is not much, but it is in a pre-mass production stage, so a very decent development revenue showing mostly skin-in-a-game by key customers who signed for future high volumes.

One of the things we learned is the benefit of participating in industry typical events like winter testing sessions. This is an example from Sweden. The key is to get in touch with people who understand the technology and can then later promote it within their organizations.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Yes, of course. It is important to have a great team and you need to be able to motivate them with knowledge, and the opportunity to grow personally and make an impact. At the same, it is important to have fun.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Well, we are providing a platform for others. Our multiple-wheel drivetrain platform offers carmakers to build on it, integrate it into their vehicles, or in some cases just pick some of our key components or software.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Yes, I would recommend as already mentioned: “Build to last”, “Innovators Dilemma” and “innovators Solution”, “Zero to one”, “Blue Ocean strategy”, “Crossing the Chasm”, “Why”. But don’t ignore also the key scientific books like Feynman’s Lectures on physics and similar scientific and engineering sources of wisdom.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Well, focus on something that will make an impact. You will have challenges on the way and it will help you to keep being motivated and give you reasons and tools to motivate your team.

Check how I was thinking about it. That was back in 2013. My TEDX talk.

It is really important to have impressive solutions. This is an example of around 3 seconds of acceleration 0 to 100 km/h. Imagine. With motors just inside the wheels.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

At Elaphe, we are working towards production scale-up, expanding our facilities, and continuously engineering the globally recognized #inwheel solutions.

We offer opportunities for further career and personal growth, working with world-known automotive players on exciting technologies. You can expect fulfilling teamwork and a great work environment. With your work, you will contribute to industry disruption - having a great impact on the transportation of tomorrow!

All open roles and the links to apply are here.

Just some of the open job positions are for:

Firmware R&D engineer
Software architect
Hardware engineer
Functional safety engineer
System R&D engineer
Application engineer in the field of EV conversion and build
Industrialization engineer
And more…

We are offering full-time roles for work based in Ljubljana, Slovenia and we offer relocation support.

If you do not find a fit for you just now, make sure to apply for our talent pool as we are growing consistently, always in need of the right team members for the job.