Performance Over Price: The Founder Thesis of Saurav Kumar, CEO of Euler Motors
The definitive profile of Saurav Kumar, founder of Euler Motors. Discover his journey from a Paytm-acquired startup to building India's leading commercial EV company.
The Full-Stack Founder: Saurav Kumar's Contrarian Blueprint to Electrify India
In the world of electric vehicles, the common wisdom has been to chase lower prices to compete with traditional engines. Saurav Kumar, the Founder and CEO of Euler Motors, rejected this premise entirely. His founder thesis was built on a contrarian belief: to truly win the commercial EV market, you don’t build a cheaper vehicle—you build a better one. This software-first, first-principles approach has allowed him to build one of India’s most promising hardware startups, focused on solving the core challenges of last-mile logistics.
This deep-dive into the journey of Saurav Kumar and Euler Motors is based on an in-depth conversation on the Founder Thesis Podcast with Akshay Datt.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
The Core Insight: Winning on Total Cost, Not Upfront Cost
When Saurav Kumar surveyed the Indian EV landscape in 2018, he saw a market filled with subpar vehicles. The reason was simple: manufacturers were trying to match the low price point of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, which led to compromises in performance, range, and durability. This resulted in slow adoption, as fleet owners couldn't rely on these vehicles for their demanding, mission-critical operations.
Saurav’s insight was to flip the problem on its head. Instead of asking, "How can we make an EV as cheap as a diesel vehicle?" he asked, "How can we build an EV so superior in performance and efficiency that it justifies a higher upfront cost?" The answer lay in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). While an Euler vehicle might cost more to purchase, its significantly lower running costs (60 paisa per kilometer vs. ₹3 for diesel) and higher earning potential meant that a customer could recover the initial premium within a single year.
“Our main competition is the IC engines of the world. If you put a Euler HiLoad, it will beat every IC vehicle that is out there. And when I say beat, whether you do payload capacity, gradient, or you do tug of war, whatever you do, it is better than anybody else.”
This relentless focus on performance and TCO became the bedrock of Euler Motors' strategy, allowing the company to build a product that customers were willing to pay more for because it directly improved their bottom line.
From Bihar to Cornell: The Making of a Technologist
Saurav Kumar’s journey as a hardware entrepreneur is deeply rooted in his background as a software architect and technologist. Originally from Bihar, he was home-schooled for a time before moving to Delhi, where he attended Delhi Public School - R. K. Puram. He pursued his Bachelor's in Computer Science from Delhi College of Engineering, where he discovered a deep passion for robotics.
This passion took him to INRIA, a leading research center in France, where he worked on driverless car technology with Toyota. He then went on to earn his Master's in Computer Science from Cornell University, specializing in machine learning and computer vision. His academic work was not just theoretical; he was hands-on, building unmanned ground vehicles, aerial drones, and even autonomous underwater vehicles. This diverse experience across different forms of electric mobility gave him a unique, system-level understanding of the technology.
After graduating, he worked in the US at Yahoo Search in California and an ad-tech startup called MOAT in New York. However, a desire to build in India, fueled by the smartphone boom, prompted his return.
The First Venture: The Rise and Fall of Cube26
In 2012, Saurav co-founded his first startup, Cube26, with two roommates from his time in Silicon Valley. The company’s vision was to make mobile devices smarter by using their sensors. Their first major success was a B2B deal with Micromax, licensing a "look away to pause" feature for their video player, which shipped on lakhs of devices.
The company, backed by prominent investors like Tiger Global and Flipkart, eventually pivoted to building its own consumer hardware, launching a smart bulb under the brand name IOTA. However, the capital-intensive hardware business faced a critical blow during India's demonetization, which froze cash flows and inventories. In 2017, after a challenging six-year journey, Cube26 was acquired by Paytm. Saurav is candid that it was not a successful financial outcome for his investors, but the experience provided him with invaluable lessons in fundraising, hardware manufacturing, and the realities of market timing.
The Genesis of Euler Motors: A Mission Born from Pollution
After the Cube26 acquisition, Saurav was driven by a new mission: to tackle India's severe air pollution crisis, of which vehicular emissions are a primary cause. His research showed that commercial vehicles were one of the biggest contributors. This set him on the path to building Euler Motors in 2018.
The early days were defined by scrappy, first-principles execution.
Becoming the Customer: Before building a single vehicle, Saurav’s team became a logistics operator themselves, running existing market vehicles for e-commerce companies to deeply understand every pain point a driver and fleet owner faces.
Building from a Shed: The first Euler prototype wasn't designed in a fancy R&D lab. Saurav would hand-draw designs and work with an e-rickshaw manufacturer, using their scrap space to assemble the first vehicles. The team would use the vendor's tools at night, welding and testing on rough rural roads to simulate real-world conditions.
A Critical Discovery: Early pilots during the intense Indian summer of 2018 led to a crucial insight: battery performance degraded severely in the heat. This led to an early and intense focus on developing a proprietary liquid-cooled battery pack, which has since become a core piece of Euler's IP and a major competitive advantage.
Building a Full-Stack Juggernaut
Euler Motors is not just a vehicle manufacturer; it’s a full-stack mobility company. Saurav understood that to convince B2B clients to switch to electric, he had to solve for the entire ecosystem.
The Product: The Euler HiLoad EV The company's flagship product is a testament to its "performance over price" philosophy. It is engineered to maximize a customer's earning potential.
Highest Payload: It offers a payload capacity of 688 kg, which is 40% more than any comparable ICE vehicle in its category.
Superior Range & Charging: The vehicle delivers a real-world range of 120 km on a single charge. Its liquid-cooled battery supports fast charging, providing 50 km of range in just 15 minutes.
Unbeatable Economics: The running cost is just 60 paisa per kilometer, a fraction of the ₹3-4 per kilometer for diesel vehicles.
The Capital & Scale: The $206M Journey Building a hardware company is capital-intensive. Saurav has successfully navigated this challenge, raising a total of $206 million across 13 funding rounds.
Key Investors: Euler is backed by a powerful mix of investors, including early-stage VCs like Blume Ventures, impact-focused Development Finance Institutions like the UK’s BII and the Asian Development Bank, and a major strategic partner in Hero MotoCorp.
Ambitious Scaling: From its current production of around 100 vehicles per month, Euler is scaling up aggressively. The company is operationalizing a new manufacturing facility in Palwal, Haryana, with the capacity to produce 36,000 units per year, or 3,000 per month.
The Road Ahead: Four Wheels and a Strategic Alliance
With the three-wheeler segment on a solid footing, Euler Motors is expanding. The company is entering the highly competitive four-wheeler Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) market with its Storm EV platform. Furthermore, the strategic partnership with Hero MotoCorp, which is now Euler's largest external shareholder, provides an unparalleled advantage in supply chain, manufacturing excellence, and distribution, de-risking the company's ambitious plans for pan-India expansion.
Saurav Kumar's journey is a powerful case study in building for the long term. By rejecting shortcuts and focusing on solving core customer problems with deep technology, he is not just building a company; he is building the future of commercial mobility in India.
Listen now!
Other Ways to Listen:
Some of the things he shared:-
Starting Cube26 and selling it to PayTm
Insights for starting a commercial EV business
Process of manufacturing EVs
Market share of EVs
Read the text version of the episode here.
Additional readings:-
Euler Motors: Building high-performance EV three-wheelers to last
Euler Motors; a Growing name in E3W Commercial Vehicle Manufacturing
Euler Motors gears up to build three-wheeler EV ecosystem in India
Before you go……the analytics only tell me so much, I want to hear what you feel and think about the conversations.
Mail me at ad@thepodium.in with your comments & feedback or if you just want to hear my comments on your startup idea - I love getting your emails!
Until the next founder's thesis📕,
Your host, AD