Hulas Motors plans to roll out domestically produced battery-powered cars under the brand name Hulas-e. The environment-friendly electric vehicles, which will have a price tag not exceeding Rs1.7 million, will hit the streets in five to six months. 

“The car will run 160 km on a full charge,” said Prafulla Chand Das, general manager of the company. 

Hulas Motors, which began operations in 1994, shut down production of its Hulas Mustang Max vehicle in 2015 after it failed to meet environment pollution standards, and currently produces battery-powered city rickshaws.

The company stopped producing the Mustang Max after the government allegedly refused to give it adequate time to upgrade to Euro-3 quality standards. According to Das, the company had no option but to stop production after it failed to obtain a permit from the government. 

The Rs120-million company has produced more than 600 Hulas city rickshaws. Das said that the company was facing problems as the municipality had refused to issue permits to operate its battery-powered rickshaws within city limits.

The company has produced 100 battery-powered Hulas Nano cars priced at Rs171,000 and 500 city rickshaws priced at Rs251,000, but more than 50 vehicles remain unsold due to a slump in demand, said Das. 

The company has also introduced six versions of battery-powered scooters which run 65-75 km on a full charge. The scooters have a starting price of Rs90,000.

Hulas Motors started by producing power carts for farmers powered by a pumping set. The four-wheeled power carts were used to haul freight, pump water and thresh crops. The company produced only 10 such power carts. Subsequently, the company launched a four-wheeler Hulas Sherpa in three different versions. After the government implemented an environment pollution provision, Hulas modified the vehicle and rolled out the Hulas Sherpa 46 D NS e-drive.   In 2003, the Hulas Mustang went into production as a modified version of the Hulas Sherpa. The company assembled 200 vehicles under the name Mustang V2 hard top Fiber and modified it three years later and produced 250 units of the Mustang Max.  The company used to employ more than 150 officials and workers till two years ago. The workforce was scaled down to 70 after the company began producing city rickshaws.