What we talked about
Arun Seelam is the co-founder and CEO of Boson Motors, building rugged, affordable electric utility vehicles for agriculture, ranches, and commercial use. In this conversation, Arun shares how his experience as an ex-Google database engineer:watching early autonomy and Android Auto:sparked a different mission: bring practical automation to underserved off-road markets where labor shortages are rising and margins are thin.
Show notes
While Waymo and the autonomous vehicle industry aimed at high-end, on-road markets, Arun Seelam saw a different opportunity: the median age of a US farmer is above 50, young people aren’t replacing them, and nobody was building an affordable electric utility vehicle that a farmer could automate without learning to code. The Boson Motors LX40 is his answer:rated at one ton of payload and priced at $27,999.
What we covered
- The LX40’s automation model is “record and play”: a farmer drives a route once or twice, the vehicle learns it, and then runs it autonomously in repeatable loops:no programming required. A 10-year-old tested it successfully during development.
- The suspension and frame were deliberately over-engineered for abuse: one-inch springs nearly six inches in diameter (the kind typically found in Mercedes G-Wagen or high-end Jeep Wranglers), a fully boxed steel frame with no flex, and coil springs on all four independently suspended wheels:all designed to be repaired in under an hour with basic hand tools.
- Boson chose lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry over the more common NMC (nickel-cobalt-manganese) specifically because LFP handles thermal shocks without risk of thermal runaway:critical for field environments where batteries may be mistreated and there is no sophisticated shop nearby.
- The braking system is derived from Baja race vehicles: a long brake pedal that uses mechanical leverage from the driver’s foot without a vacuum booster, eliminating one more component that can fail and be hard to source.
- An autonomous security patrol variant has been running continuously on a private ranch in South Texas for four months, detecting encroachment and deterring theft:Boson plans a commercial deployment of this variant in July 2026.
- With 35 units deployed in California in their first year, Boson’s 2026 focus is scaling to a few hundred units across California and South Texas, with dealers already appointed in the Central Valley and Southern California, and distribution also active in Australia and New Zealand.
About Arun Seelam
Arun Seelam is the co-founder and CEO of Boson Motors, an electric utility vehicle company building smart, rugged off-road vehicles for agriculture and commercial use. He previously worked as a database engineer at Google and conducted research in AI multi-agent systems.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aforarun
- Website: https://www.bosonpower.com
Episode 108 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01) Welcome back to the pre-Vered podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Our guest today is Arun Sallam, his co-founder and CEO of Boson Motors. He has a background as an ex-Google database engineer and research in AI multi-agent systems. Arun is passionate about building rugged, affordable electric utility vehicles, software defined, easy to upgrade and designed like smart robots.
that are tough as tanks. Boson focuses on practical solutions for agriculture, farms, and commercial use, featuring models like the LX40 all-electric 4x4 with lithium iron phosphate batteries for better performance in tough terrain. Aaron, welcome to the show.
Arun Seelam (00:43) thank you for having me.
Federico Ramallo (00:45) I’m honored to have you here today. tell us about what inspired you and your co-founder to start Boson Motors.
Arun Seelam (00:53) So when, during my previous stint working as an engineer at Google, we witnessed the development of autonomous vehicles, especially Waymo now, whatever Waymo is, it was a self-driving car project that was apparently being developed. And we saw that car being tested quite a bit. And in another stream, we saw the early stages of Android Auto.
being deployed with OEMs like Ford, General Motors. So there was a realization that the autonomous vehicles and Android are taking two different routes. We noticed that the autonomous vehicles are becoming or being targeted at on-road and at high-end price points.
we felt there is an opportunity to serve underserved markets like agricultural communities, rural communities and developing communities with a more affordable approach with less sophisticated functionalities but immediate practical application, something that can save short time for farmers rather than waking up at 4 a.m. to a particular hour and why can’t we just simply automate that with a very affordable platform. So that
fundamental intuition led us to develop and start developing on boson motors.
Federico Ramallo (02:15) Interesting, yeah. And as you mentioned, the farmers, it’s an audience, right? So there is an opportunity there.
Arun Seelam (02:25) Yes.
Exactly, especially in the world, if you see, especially in the US, the median age of a farmer is above 50 and a lot of young people are not taking up farming, not enough people are not taking up farming. So there is an acute labor shortage that is immediately apparent in the Western world and it is gradually becoming visible in developing countries, in Africa.
Southeast Asia, India, where there is a lot of population growth, increasing need for increasing better food security, yet the number of new people participating in agriculture is in a gradual decline. So there is going to be a lot of need for farming communities to bring about automation and help them save some time. And anybody who knows farmers know that they don’t make a ton of money.
basically do it more for the passion and their margins are thin. So we are thoughtful about that and we thoughtfully decided to keep the product at affordable level and make it accessible to a wide variety of farming communities across the world.
Federico Ramallo (03:39) Right.
What are the features that you and your team built on the LX40 to support this industry?
Arun Seelam (03:49) So we understand that the people who work in farming across the world are not necessarily computer savvy or interested in doing a lot of computer things. So we made it really simple. So if any farmer wants to automate, let’s say you wanted a vehicle to drop water from point A to point B every day or drop a bale of hay from point A to point B, C, D, E.
you just record one or two times how you do it and the way it intelligently learns your routine and it gradually picks up on the exceptions as you use the unit on a day to day. So the remarkable thing about our product is you don’t have to fully use it as a robot. You can just use it as a tough little utility vehicle that it is and then train it to become better. So you basically record what you’re doing and then play.
Then you can do loop A, loop B, loop C. if you want to go to the west side of the ranch, you can have a different loop for that and it will do that. So it’s pretty intuitive and straightforward. Anybody can use it. I mean, we had 10 year old kids do it. I mean, it was not that hard.
Federico Ramallo (05:00) because you don’t need to learn how to program it you don’t need to you don’t need to teach it because it can self-learn and there are repeatable tasks on the farming that are easy to identify and and be able to automate those tasks right
Arun Seelam (05:11) Yes.
Yes, our main rallying cry is automate chores and make farmers life better. So chore, by definition, is a repeat with task that folks have to do voluntarily or involuntarily to keep things running. And we want to gradually take some of those chores away and give valuable time back to the farmers and users.
Federico Ramallo (05:42) Right, right, interesting. And you also mentioned that you built it rugged like a tank, right?
Arun Seelam (05:48) Yes. Yes.
Federico Ramallo (05:50) Can you tell us a little bit more about how you make it rugged and reliable?
Arun Seelam (05:56) Yeah, so this, person who developed this and the team behind designing this carried a few simple principles. One, he has a long heritage and experience developing trucks for Daimler and Ashoka Leyland that operate in really tough environments and tough roads. lot of times these trucks are overloaded and they carry 40 tons on pretty bad roads.
And when they break down, they have to be repaired by someone with basic tools and without a sophisticated shop, a lot of times on the side of the road. So the folks and the team who designed this product brought in this decades of experience of doing that kind of, bringing that kind of intuitive knowledge. And if you look at the vehicle we use,
one inch spring that is almost six inches in diameter and it is this big. Nobody in this segment uses springs like that. Those kind of springs are generally used in Mercedes Benz G-Wagen or your high-end Jeep Wranglers but they’re typically not found in this segment of the vehicle so including the wheel sub-assemblies, the wheels, the tires, everything you see in the truck that is actually taking load
is over engineered, over built and built with the design philosophy to last forever and repair in under an hour with basic tools.
Federico Ramallo (07:24) I, the ways that I understand this is that people with no mechanical empathy.
that uses the vehicle as a, people that use the vehicle as a utility, whether they are employees or they lack knowledge of the mechanics, they have this lack of technical empathy, right? They just use it, go as fast as possible and load it as much as possible, right? ⁓ Whereas when you talk with people that,
Arun Seelam (07:37) is.
Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (07:51) enjoyed driving or have an engineering background, they have a much deeper understanding of how things work. So building for those type of people, it’s a specific challenge. ⁓ I’ve seen pickup trucks that are used in mines that they build a stiffer suspension. ⁓
Arun Seelam (08:07) Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (08:17) So that way the speed regulation is the discomfort of the driver, right? ⁓ Which, know, I write to that conclusion. Maybe that wasn’t the case, but, you know, they made it over stiff. So, you know, if you go fast, you’re going to jump up and down on the track, right? The track is not going to break, but, you know, you as a driver are going to slow down the next time because you don’t want to be shuffled inside the track, right?
Arun Seelam (08:22) you
Maybe this is
a lesson we should learn and incorporate into our truck because the way we designed it, it is designed to perform off-road and with loads. So when we engineered it, we engineered it for ourselves, it needed to be smooth off-road and that had the effect that you’re saying a lot of people just drive it fast off-road, which is not good for the durability. Yes. Yes.
Federico Ramallo (09:08) Right, right, yeah, yeah, I’ve
seen that happening and the truck will jump up and down, up and down on the air, right? Yeah. And it doesn’t break, right? Yeah.
Arun Seelam (09:14) yes up and down and then
It doesn’t break, yes, yes. mean, we’ve
designed it. Some of the worst abuse I’ve seen on the truck is actually done by our engineers and our testers. They just put it, take it to the extreme humanly possible testing, and then sometimes they are unhappy that it broke at that level. So I try to explain them that no person who actually pays money out of their pocket will ever use it like this. But.
Federico Ramallo (09:43) much payload are you planning to support with the truck?
Arun Seelam (09:47) This is a one ton payload, 2200 pounds in carrying capacity and 2000 pounds in towing capacity.
Federico Ramallo (09:57) Wow, that’s a lot of load. ⁓
Arun Seelam (10:00) Thank you.
Yes. It is built to last and built to do tough things.
Federico Ramallo (10:05) Right, Yeah, the truck that I’m talking about is a Mitsubishi Triton L200. It’s not available in the US market and it has a similar payload, but it’s a huge truck compared to the Boson, right? I mean, huge truck, but small bed, right? So, you know, for cargo is not as efficient, right?
Arun Seelam (10:12) alone.
Yes, that is one of the opportunities that we spotted in the market. But you have a lot of these high-end expensive trucks. Not necessarily expensive, but they designed to go fast on the road and carry loads. But when you strictly talk about off-road, a lot of times the segment of vehicles in this segment are not carrying a lot of load.
topping off at 300 to maybe 700 pounds, majority of them. little units, very few models actually do more than 1,000 pounds. So we spotted that there is a niche, that it is underserved market segment, that is where we decided to enter the market.
Federico Ramallo (11:10) Right, right. Yeah, and the market tendency has been to have vehicles that are more complex, And less reliable, right? So I’m happy to see that you’re going in the opposite direction because I think that that’s a much better long-term solution, right?
Arun Seelam (11:18) Yes.
Yes, we ourselves are the users of the product and during the early development stages, we did extensive market research, interacted with growers, operators in various warehouses, industries, large campuses. And a lot of times we noticed that especially you have access to lot of auto mechanics, but the utility vehicles tend to have less number of mechanics just as a map.
matter of fact in the market and then they tend to be specialized in a particular brand so there is generally less available technical talent who can fix this and making it complex just discourages new people from entering into it so we wanted to bring something that is mostly DIY with a little bit of YouTube videos anybody who’s handy with the wrench and a screwdriver should be able to figure this out so that
DIY mentality and making it simple, rugged, robust was deeply embedded in the product design from day one.
Federico Ramallo (12:33) Right. I love the Tesla products, but it’s one of the things that I’ve seen that they break with, know, if they get a big boulder, they break the battery and it’s thousands and thousands of dollars to fix it, right? You cannot fix it yourself, right? ⁓ Which, you know…
Arun Seelam (12:48) Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (12:55) limits. I understand it’s a luxury vehicle, It’s a whole different market. But it’s basically one of the reasons I didn’t get it because it didn’t make sense for me to have a vehicle like that. prefer a vehicle that I can fix, that I can, you know, just work on it.
Arun Seelam (13:10) Yes. And that has become, with the new electrical vehicle revolution, there is very little that an actual user can fix. And that is rightfully so. A lot of times, batteries are high voltage components. And beyond batteries, there are very few components that an actual user can fix. So in our unit, in our vehicle design, were very
Federico Ramallo (13:11) interesting.
Arun Seelam (13:33) aware of that and decided to take a completely opposite route, make it simple, modular and just do it yourself mostly.
Federico Ramallo (13:43) Right, the way that I think of this and correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s like PCs, we used to be able to put the PC together, right? I mean, we don’t have the technology to build a RAM chip or, but being able to just swap a RAM or connect the SSD or whatever it is, right?
Arun Seelam (13:51) Yes, exactly. Yes, yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (14:07) I think that’s a good enough modularity that allow us to just maintain our own equipment.
Arun Seelam (14:14) Especially I think that resonates well with people like you and me who might have built PCs in the past, brought off the shelf components and assembled our own little gaming rigs or powerful machines. this is a vehicle embodiment of that philosophy in a vehicle. It is modular and customizable and you can make it your own and it’s not that hard to swap parts on it or bring in new parts.
Federico Ramallo (14:26) Right.
Right, amazing.
Right, right. Because that means that as a customer, you can buy the vehicle, service it yourself. If something breaks, you can just order parts, fix it. You don’t have to ship the whole vehicle to the factory or have a big bill at the end ⁓ with a question mark of what…
Arun Seelam (14:48) Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (15:03) What is it that they actually change, right?
Arun Seelam (15:06) And that is the most
painful part of any vehicle ownership, right? If you have a car, I have a car. It is really painful to see a repair bill that usually exceeds our expectations. And we directly and cognizantly wanted to avoid that experience.
Federico Ramallo (15:20) Right.
Right. Amazing. And how are you planning to do the selling? Are you planning to set up dealerships? Are you planning to do the route like having retailers that would resell the vehicles?
Arun Seelam (15:41) So right now we have appointed a few dealers in the Central Valley and Southern California, and we have a few in Northern California and in the Central Valley area generally. We also predominantly do a lot of direct sales and marketing. And especially if these customers are outside the territories that already have dealers, we serve those markets directly through the company. And if…
the customer falls in a dealer territory, we generally direct the sale to the dealer. We do all the marketing on-site demo. So our sales team is one of the best sales teams. They are really, really motivated and they love the product, their users themselves. They take the truck or the UTV to the customer’s site and they let the person demonstrate, see how it fits into their day-to-day operations and
And a lot of times when the customer actually sees it on their property, they tend to see the value it provides and then they put an order and we fulfill it. Right now the focus is this year California and South Texas. And we also offer almost same day service. We have our own service people with a pickup truck and a trailer. If something happens, they will show up at your door the next day and fix it.
If they can’t fix it, they will drop a loaner and take this back. So we offer exceptional service and a peace of mind for customers who trust our product.
Federico Ramallo (17:09) Right, yeah, because once people integrate the product in their workflow, then it becomes a critical component of the work, Yeah.
Arun Seelam (17:17) Yes. Yes. Exactly.
Most of the time, this is a commercially deployed vehicle, a utility vehicle. And we understand the criticality in commercial operations, what losing a vehicle out of the fleet can have. And we make sure that that pain point is offset by our service team.
Federico Ramallo (17:40) Right, amazing. And you mentioned you’re starting in California and then you’re going to expand to other areas in the US, right?
Arun Seelam (17:48) Yes, this year our focus is in California and South Texas and going forward we gradually want to expand to Pacific Northwest, Oregon, Washington state and then expand around Texas and eventually the entire United States. We also have presence in Australia and New Zealand through dealers and distributors. Those markets seem to be growing steadily.
Federico Ramallo (18:11) Right, interesting. And what thought have you given to the chemistry of the battery? What were the requirements that you were looking for in order to choose the chemistry?
Arun Seelam (18:23) So when we were developing this product there were predominantly two chemistries NMC which is Nickel Cobalt Manganese and Lithium-ion Phosphate NMC’s tend to have higher power densities, lower weight and faster charging times whereas lithium-ion phosphate was less power dense but thermally stable so it can handle a lot of thermal shocks without exploding
mean, the thermal runaways. With that experience, I being a utility vehicle space is not a constraint for us, but we definitely want to engineer with a lot of tolerance for operational conditions. So if something goes wrong or if the battery is mistreated in the field, we definitely don’t want a thermal runaway or a dangerous event. So we decided to go with
the lithium and phosphate chemistry, which is on the pricier and more expensive than traditional or other lithium chemistries. for this application, our research and our experimental data indicates this is very appropriate. And this is the best solution given the form factor and the price points.
It is rugged, simple, durable and built for the purpose.
Federico Ramallo (19:39) And I dare to say beautiful. I like the design of the vehicle.
Arun Seelam (19:42) thank you.
I will pass the compliments to the designer. He is the modern day version of Leonardo da Vinci. He designs this. And I mean it. He designed the aesthetics, the chassis, the frame, every inch. Everything, millimeter by millimeter, everything you see is designed by one designer who’s a truly unique individual.
Federico Ramallo (20:05) Amazing. That’s the beauty of having a small team, right? Because I’ve seen vehicles designed by committee and they don’t have, the vehicle doesn’t transmit, it doesn’t have a soul, right? And you know, and you know.
Arun Seelam (20:20) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (20:24) At the end of the day, it’s a utility vehicle. It’s not going to be stylish performance. But when I see the, I’m seeing photos of the truck and I’m thinking, that’s amazing. It transmit the ruggedness. transmit, it’s a simple design.
but also stylish. I’m seeing it on different angles and I’m thinking, it’s a beautiful design, yeah.
Arun Seelam (20:53) Thank you. Thank you.
And I will certainly pass this comments on to the team and they absolutely deserve it. And a lot of times, like you rightly pointed out, the vehicles designed by committees shows and if a product or a vehicle for that matter is designed by one person with strong convictions and design aesthetics, it’s undeniable that the product clearly shows that. mean, if you take any Apple product,
If they design by committee, it would have 10 different slots, SD card slot and that, this, right. But they decided to stick to their guns and one person or one team made strong choices. And this is exactly the same way we also worked. We didn’t design it by committee. The product team did market research, gave the feedback to the design team and they unilaterally decided this is how the product is going to look like and
you will like it. turns out most people actually like it.
Federico Ramallo (21:48) you
Right, right. mean, at the end of the day, every time you make a design decision, it is more important what you leave out of the product, what you put in, because as you said, can shuffle as many features, as many buttons as possible, but that’s not practical. And then …
After that, whatever path you choose, you’re making a bold statement. There’s always somebody that is going to criticize something or why you didn’t do this way or this other way. And it’s taking a risk. ⁓ And I must… go ahead, go ahead.
Arun Seelam (22:20) Yes.
Absolutely. And with this… Go ahead, please.
You actually struck the right point, right? mean, whenever you take a stance, there is… mean, on any given decision, you have many people offering multiple views, and then we can’t… or it is impractical to take into account all the feedback and make a perfect imaginary product that everybody will like. Generally, that doesn’t happen.
Federico Ramallo (22:52) Bye.
Yeah, it’s a, as a utilitarian vehicle, you’re looking for a box, basically, but you want to design it so it doesn’t actually look like a box, but as close as possible because you want to maximize the space available, right? So it’s a difficult balance, right? The other thing I was going to mention is that I just looking at pictures with
I was looking at pictures without the doors and the roof, and now that I’m looking at pictures with doors and roof and the whole windshield, it looks even better. And then I’m looking at a picture that has a side box between the wheels, and some don’t, so I’m thinking maybe there are…
Arun Seelam (23:31) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (23:36) options and accessories that you can add on to the vehicle,
Arun Seelam (23:40) Yes, a lot of these are side boxes, hydraulic dump heads, windshield, roof, doors.
spare tires, extra toolboxes, air compressors. We have a wide variety of accessories that you could customize this vehicle with. And so I also wanted to go back to one of your previous points. This could be a box, but we decided to make it beautiful. So yes, I if you see the traditional automotive cars, people buy them with their heart and then rationalize it.
you have to aesthetically be pleasing. Whereas commercial vehicles or utility vehicles, they just are logical purchases. don’t necessary, it’s not necessary to look beautiful as long as it is functional. So there is no need to be aesthetically pleasing, but our team went above and beyond to make sure it is functional first and also beautiful and modular so you can add any number of accessories you want to.
gun racks. We had someone ask for a flamethrower. I don’t know why but… But seems to… Their justification is they wanted to burn weeds but sure but I… So you have all kinds of accessories like soil samplers, flamethrowers, sprayers is a popular one and…
We also have interesting attachments like feed pushers. So yeah, the vehicle is like an Android phone, a Swiss Army knife in physical form. So you could customize it in n number of ways and then make it just for you.
Federico Ramallo (25:16) Right, right. And winch, I’ve seen a winch base. So have your team thought about putting a range extender, an ICE, internal combustion engine range extender as an accessory?
Arun Seelam (25:18) Yes, yes.
Not at this time. We noticed that typical day to day usage, we are noticing our product being charged maybe once or twice a week. So it is rarely that it has ever run out of, I mean so far we have not had a use case where in a day it completely ran out of charge.
So for the current market segments we saw, we did not find an immediate need for range extension. Maybe fast charging could be beneficial for some use cases. But typically, most people are happy with the range. But we do have an interesting off-road community where they had to use a diesel generator to charge it up. And this is way out in the boonies when they’re on hunting parties.
This is a great hunting vehicle by the way because it is silent, you can sneak up on whatever you want looking to shoot and then you can put your little stakeout spot on the back of the bed and this is a great hunting machine and they have used the generator to charge it.
Federico Ramallo (26:32) Right.
Interesting, very interesting. Have you set a public price yet or are you still working on a price? Oh, interesting.
Arun Seelam (26:42) Yes, we are
selling at a manufacturer suggested retail price of $27,000. And from time to time, based on the number of orders or multi-unit purchases, we give promotional pricing.
Federico Ramallo (26:57) Right, volume discount.
Arun Seelam (26:59) volume discount but generally for one unit it’s 27,999
Federico Ramallo (27:04) Interesting. Yeah, and one of the benefits of having an electrical vehicle is that you can run solar panels. You can run a generator to fill it in or the grid, But then after that, particularly if you set up a solar panel, set up then…
your operating costs are much, much lower because now you don’t have to transport fuel to keep the vehicle running.
Arun Seelam (27:27) Yes, in fact we used to offer that solution. We found that a lot of places that operate these units may or may not have high power grid. So we used to operate, offer a modular solution where you can lay the panels out and capture the charge or capture the energy in a battery pack and then charge the vehicle with it. But due to there are other market solutions available.
Federico Ramallo (27:36) Right.
Arun Seelam (27:53) And we decided that may not be the best use of our resources, but we have a few of these units out in the field and they’re quite useful.
Federico Ramallo (28:02) Right, interesting. So what is the future for Bosu Motors? What are you planning to do next? I understand you’re launching this product, or you’re working on launching this product now, but what are you planning to do in the future?
Arun Seelam (28:15) So we have deployed about 35 units in the field at various customers in California last year. And this year we are planning to make a few hundred and focus in the California market. In the next week, there is World Ag Expo. We are launching a new variant of the product with significant improvements and enhancements over the last year. And the big news is…
In July, we are launching or deploying as a security patrol automation. This variant, an autonomous variant of this truck will be working as a security patrol for large properties. It has been doing security patrol in South Texas on the border for a private ranch owner. So this ranch owner had problems of encroachment on his private property. So our
product is safeguarding, so it is on a continuous security patrol all night, ensuring there is a reduction in theft and encroachment issues. And the results have been quite promising. It’s been almost four months. We see that this is adding a lot of value to the customers, and we are commercially deploying this in July this year. So that is a big,
Federico Ramallo (29:29) Right.
Arun Seelam (29:31) big launch we are looking forward to and we are quite excited about.
Federico Ramallo (29:34) That’s very interesting. For that security patrol role, you’re putting additional cameras, right?
Arun Seelam (29:39) Yes, additional cameras and you could sit in a control room or at your home and watch it on a video screen or wait for the truck to alert you when there is something that needs to be alerted.
Federico Ramallo (29:51) interesting.
Arun Seelam (29:52) So the vehicle will observe, report, deploy a loud horn to scare away things. And I think having a presence is also a deterrent of criminal activity or any unwanted things.
Federico Ramallo (30:04) Right, having the lights around becomes a deterrent.
Arun Seelam (30:06) Yes, having the lights and
the vehicle making sound and going around is enough deterrent.
Federico Ramallo (30:12) Right.
The other question I was going to ask about the automation, are you planning to offer that as a subscription model or as part of the purchasing price?
Arun Seelam (30:23) It is going to be a subscription model. The base unit will not have all the optional sensors and onboard computers. The autonomous unit will have additional hardware. And on top of that, there will be a monthly subscription. Because the software needs continuous updates, we also have to pay Starlink for internet service provider. So there will be ongoing cost that mostly it is to keep these things running and up to date.
Federico Ramallo (30:50) Right, right. Yes, it makes sense because you’re using server resources, you know, over-the-air updates that, and all the engineering behind it to make sure that it works correctly,
Arun Seelam (30:54) Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (31:02) Very interesting. So by the way, I’m running an off-road community back here in Mexico. And we take, we do from overland to rock-rolling ⁓ events. Yeah. And I’m sure that my friends are going to love the news of this vehicle. And it’s going to be an interesting conversation.
Arun Seelam (31:12) wow.
absolutely.
We’d love to be part of it in any way we Mexico is going to be our future home where in future we might manufacture this in Mexico.
Federico Ramallo (31:35) Right, right, there’s a lot of talent here in Mexico that could help you build this vehicle, yeah.
Arun Seelam (31:35) So, yes.
Super, yeah, so we’re really looking forward to it and please let us know of these events. We’d love to participate.
Federico Ramallo (31:48) Yes, I mean, there’s one that it’s close by in Tijuana near the border. then Guadalajara is a little bit more in the middle of Mexico, right? So it’s a little bit southern. But there are lot of events that are related to both the recreational off-road and the industry for farming, right?
Arun Seelam (32:16) I see. Or the Baha…
Federico Ramallo (32:19) On the Baja, we have the Baja 1000. Many interesting events to do.
Arun Seelam (32:21) I see. Yes.
Super.
Federico Ramallo (32:26) Yeah, what we do off-road is mostly recreational and we just take the cars to the limit of what they can do.
Arun Seelam (32:34) Yes,
yes, we’ve actually during the development of this product we have run into some issues or we ran into some design deadlocks I Happen to be in SEMA in Las Vegas and there was this huge section of Baja vehicles. they were just amazingly built and We borrowed some of the ideas from the Baja vehicles and brought it into this truck into this UTV
Federico Ramallo (32:58) That’s amazing.
Arun Seelam (32:58) especially the braking system
is derived from a Baha’i unit.
Federico Ramallo (33:02) really, so you’re using a braking system on the driveshaft?
Arun Seelam (33:06) Yes, and not that, but the brake pedal itself is pretty long. So it is using leverage from your foot and not entirely depending upon the hydraulic boost. So there is no vacuum booster in this. You are just using physics and your foot and improving the braking without overcomplicating the system.
Federico Ramallo (33:28) Right, right. The Germans in the 80s and the 90s were very keen towards no boost on the brakes. And it was mostly for reliability, And ⁓ simplicity, yeah. And that simplify, you don’t need vacuum, you don’t need anything, it’s just leverage, so very interesting.
Arun Seelam (33:35) I see.
Yes.
Exactly, exactly,
exactly. So there is no vacuum pump on our system. By design, it is one more thing and one less part to fix.
Federico Ramallo (33:57) Right.
Arun Seelam (33:58) So it’s pretty simple, rugged and reliable and Baha designs are really rugged and simple, reliable.
Federico Ramallo (34:08) Right, right. The suspension they have are amazing, but they’re quite expensive to build, right? So, yeah. Are you using coils or are you using leaf springs?
Arun Seelam (34:11) Yes, it is.
We use coil spring on all four sides. So all the four wheels are independent suspended. So we have coil springs on all four wheels. And then there is dampers mounted within the lower arm and the chassis. So the spring and damper are in two separate assemblies. it’s a lot more efficient that way. It’s cheaper to fix an individual part and quicker to fix if something goes wrong.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (34:42) It’s
easy to change a coil than a leaf spring.
Arun Seelam (34:45) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (34:47) interesting and they are using the battery as a structural component
Arun Seelam (34:53) Yes.
I I would say, so the frame itself is pretty rigid. We have a fully boxed frame. It is a steel box tube on all sides. So in itself, it is pretty strong. There is little or no flex in it. The battery itself will add more, I would say, rigidity.
Federico Ramallo (34:54) Amazing. That gives you lot of rigidity.
Arun Seelam (35:17) structural strength as well as brings the center of gravity to a desirable low point. So it is not taking any active loads but it does work as a structural member of the frame.
Federico Ramallo (35:34) Right, right. Yeah, I think it makes sense because for this type of vehicle, you want a rigid frame. One example that I’ve seen using flexible chassis, it’s the Unimog.
Arun Seelam (35:49) absolutely, it’s a dream truck.
Federico Ramallo (35:50) Yeah,
it’s a dream track. yes. And it has the cabin and the cab connected on three points on the chassis. And the chassis is trying to flex with the suspension. I find that counterintuitive, but because that kind of affects the handling on the road.
Arun Seelam (35:52) Yes, yes.
Federico Ramallo (36:08) But I haven’t driven one. I traveled on a U400, the old one. And it was brutal. It was a brutal, you it has straight gears. So every time you change gears, you hear the gears like grinding and you know, and you’re jumping up and down. you know, even though it says that it’s a flexible chassis, you know.
I understand it’s a cargo truck, but we were just jumping up and down. was, yeah, fun. Lots of fun, but brutal.
Arun Seelam (36:39) It’s really interesting that you brought up Unimog, but one of our design goals was make a smaller or compacter Unimog that is nicer riding. yeah, Unimog is really a tractor in a truck shape, right? I mean, really, really, for all practical purposes, it is a nice tractor. It really does most things that a tractor can do and also go fast. So somebody told me Unimog is not a…
Federico Ramallo (36:47) Right.
Yes.
Right.
Arun Seelam (37:04) truck but it is a tractor that can go fast.
Federico Ramallo (37:07) Yes, yes,
but it can do 55. does. can cannot do more. Yeah. The other question I was going to ask you if if you set up a transmission, you know, because on low speed, when you need high torque, the electric engine can be inefficient. Right. But then running at transfer transfer case or, you know,
Arun Seelam (37:12) Yes, yes.
Federico Ramallo (37:35) or a two-speed gearbox, that might add some weight and cost into it. Maybe it’s not worth having that.
Arun Seelam (37:44) No, that’s a very interesting question. But what you brought up is a really valid and important point about the limitations of the electrical system. So early on, had high ratio gearbox, sorry, relatively low ratio gearbox, which was getting up to the speed and becoming efficient. we could see there is a room for improvement in low end torque.
We made a design choice later on that, yes, most of the time this machine is going to be operated under 10 miles an hour or lesser. And it has to have a torque, the pulling power. So in the subsequent models, we changed the gear ratio to higher ratio where you can rev high. The vehicle will not go fast.
but it has all the torque you’d need. But having a two-speed did come up several times, but it is a little complex to implement a two-speed, and then you have all this clutch shifting mechanism. So we decided to maybe table that for another time, but hopefully someday we’ll make that.
Federico Ramallo (38:38) Right.
Right, right, that will be interesting. I also wondered if you could do two electric engines in line in the same axle and then have one for low speed and then another one for high speed, which would replace the gearbox. Because the issue with the gearbox is once you have gears, you can shut them.
Arun Seelam (38:57) Off-road, yeah.
for a while.
Federico Ramallo (39:24) by the instant torque of the electric engine, right? The electric motor.
Arun Seelam (39:28) That’s an interesting thought we haven’t considered, but it is definitely worth considering.
Federico Ramallo (39:34) Amazing, yeah. Yeah, I know that in Unimogs, you can have a high and low gear ratio for if you want high speed and low speed, right? So, you know, because for them, you can do 55 miles per hour at top speed or you can do, I think it’s 75, 70, right?
at the high speed, at the high gear ratio, right? So depending on the use, you can have, you have that option, right? So, so yeah. I’m glad that those ideas, you would make sense for you guys,
Arun Seelam (39:55) soon.
thank you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
mean, this is just our first product. There are many in the kitchen now. Gradually, we’ll bring them out. But these are some really interesting ideas. But we want to maintain a focus on this segment, this segment, our off-road, where all of these things have incredible value. It’s all about torque.
pulling power and doing work that is important. So thank you. These are some really interesting ideas.
Federico Ramallo (40:32) Awesome, happy to help. I’m looking forward to see a vehicle in person. Hopefully, that will happen. And we’re running out of time, but I truly appreciate it, Aaron, you being here today. We learned a lot about the vehicle. And I think you guys are doing an incredible product. You have an amazing mission, and I’m looking forward to see where you’re taking the company next.
Arun Seelam (40:52) thank you very much. That is very kind. And thank you for the opportunity to participate and then present my opinion. And you’ve been an incredible host, asked really intuitive questions and made me think of things that I have not thought before. That is the mark of a truly amazing host. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Federico Ramallo (41:10) Thank you.
Arun Seelam (41:11) a good day.