This analysis is a joint effort between the InsightEV team and guest poster Satyam Priyam Roy, an avid electro-mechanical engineer. We have followed Satyam’s passionate work on LinkedIn for some time now. He is great at doing in-depth technical walkthroughs of products with freehand sketches on his iPad. In his words:
I am a passionate electro-mechanical engineer fascinated by the craft of building things that work beautifully. I thrive on decoding engineering details and draw inspiration from the precision and innovation that define Formula 1 — especially the genius of Adrian Newey.
So when it came to going deep into the Ultraviolette X47’s tech stack, we naturally leaned on him. In turn, Satyam sent us a 203-slide deck on the X47. Naturally, we could carry only a handful of the most important slides, but drop us an email and we would be happy to share the entire deck with you (most recommended).
Disclaimer: Satyam works for one of the leading E2W manufacturers in India. However, his opinion and analysis are a personal viewpoint. He regularly does these technology explainers for E2Ws and shares them freely on LinkedIn.
At the end of last month, India-based Ultraviolette surprised everyone by launching the X47 and X47 Desert Wing, crossover motorcycles. While they ride on 17″ wheels, front and rear, they have generous suspension travel and an upright stance to qualify as Crossover motorcycles. Both are the same motorcycle with different styling tweaks.
We said ‘surprised everyone’ because the X47 was not even mentioned seriously a few months back when Ultraviolette unveiled the Tesseract scooter and Shockwave motorcycle.
InsightEV – Global Electric Mobility
And yet, the X47 is here. It was unveiled last month, and the company has promised deliveries from this month itself. Equipped with a 77 GHz radar, the X47 is India’s first under-production motorcycle with ARAS functionality.
The Importance of the X47
Ultraviolette’s current range in the showrooms is a couple of variants of the F77. While the company gets a lot of well-deserved media attention, sales are another matter altogether. Numbers have languished in the double-digit-units-per-month zone forever and just crossed into the triple-digit zone only in July. The numbers below are for domestic sales in India.
Ultraviolette has started selling in Europe now, but these are initial days, and at the time of writing this, the cumulative international sales cannot be more than a handful of bikes.
To improve sales, Ultraviolette has been expanding its retail footprint in India. The retail network was always a weak point for the company, considering it operated with just a few dealers. So, they hired the ex-sales head of Ola to run the retail network rollout. The result is an expansion of the dealer network beyond 20 outlets now. The results are showing, but the Indian market for INR 300,000 electric sports motorcycles is quite small.
What also does not work in the F77’s favour is the motorcycle’s aggressive riding stance, which makes it a less practical motorcycle for even those who are willing to spend the money. Born-again bikers are in their 40s, not an ideal age for back-breaking sportsbikes.
Ultraviolette needs to continue the story
Any startup is a lot about the story, and somewhat about the performance, where the latter is dependent on genuine factors and cannot be faked. However, the story maintains continuity with the investors. With the Tesseract and the Shockwave, Ultraviolette has assured the investors that new products are coming. There are also significant paper bookings for the Tesseract scooter that amplify the promise.
The investors like what they see, and in Aug 2025, Ultraviolette raised USD 21 million from TDK Ventures, Lingotto (Exor Capital), and a clutch of individual investors. This is a good number but we suspect, not enough to get Ultraviolette sufficiently funded till volumes become sustainable. They need more.
Also, the Tesseract and the Shockwave are still under development. Ultraviolette needs products in the showroom faster to nurture the green shoots. The X47 does that nicely. The crossovers have an upright, comfortable riding stance that makes them more appealing to a wider range of customers. What also helps is that the X47 range starts at INR 249,000 (USD 2800), about INR 50,000 (USD 565) lower than the F77 SuperStreet. That is a significant gap in a highly price-elastic Indian motorcycle market and should give sales a boost.
From here, we pass the baton to Satyam as he takes us through the X47s in detail.
X47: Quick Engineering Observations and Takeaways:
First, the basics. The X47 has its roots in the F77 but has been heavily re-engineered to make and look like what it is.
I find the X47 a brilliant integration of electrical and mechanical. It uses a lot of F77’s components but there are significant changes throughout to improve things and lower the BoM costs. In doing so, Ultraviolette has tried to find a nuanced balance between passionate engineering and logical accounting.
Maybe the inspiration to derive more bodystyles on the same platform comes from the KTM 390, which has a naked street version and an adventure variant (2023 version), both sharing the powertrain and some of the hardware. Eventually, Ultraviolette is trying to platformise, where you do some cosmetic changes, update some other hardware, and make it into an all-new bike without devoting much time to development of an all-new motorcycle or product.
Though a detailed breakdown reveals that it is more complex than it sounds.
Mechanicals
When we drill down into the X47’s parts bin, there are a lot of recognisable elements that came from the F77. There are commonalities with the F77, like the wheels, frame, battery pack, motor, motor controller, VCU, DC-DC converter, ABS module, switch cluster, TFT modules, throttle, headlamp, turn indicators, rear tail lamp, rims, charging handle, etc.
But, inherently, there are some strong core differences which make the X47 special and a completely different motorcycle.
To start with, it has a completely different profile. The wheelbase on the X47 is 40 mm longer at 1385 mm, compared to 1345 mm on the F77. This frees some packaging space, though the X47 loses some due to a more sloping tank profile.
The first apparent change is the seat profile, making the X47 decidedly more comfortable for the rider.
The position and height of the handlebars have also changed owing to the upright stance.
The X47 also has longer travel suspension at both front and rear, which would be more practical on rough roads.
The Anti-Squat percentage, basically the ability of the bike to resist rear suspension compression while being accelerated, and expansion while being braked, has gone down by 7-10% (as per available data). The recent changes that have altered the Anti Squat % have likely made the bike feel more responsive and more predictable as you have the mechanical feedback from the rear. This would also lead to a softer rear suspension feel.
The pickup point looks unchanged at least on the frame, and even the front frame architecture looks the same. But the wheelbase has been extended by 40 mm. This pulls the IFC (Instantaneous Force Center) point towards the rear axle, and the shock line passes exactly through the contact patch of the rear tyre, indicating a reduction in AS% and tending towards the softer rear suspension behaviour. The nature of this bike also demands this kind of attitude so as to feel less stiff and more responsive, and provide a dirt bike-like experience.
The major changes are in the mechanical side of things, especially the packaging of longer travel suspension, changes in the handlebar height, new body panels, their mountings, VCU re-positioning, and the onboard charger integration. While this may look straightforward, they are not. Small mechanical changes cost a lot of money to make them scalable, and the biggest problem with scale is the susceptibility. Scale doesn’t like frequent changes.
The F77 is designed for sporty, sharp handling and carries a rake angle of 23.5 degrees. In the X47, longer travel front forks, longer travel rear suspension, with 170 mm of travel, and the resultant fork length increase, have also contributed to rake angle change by 1°, and the new value is 24.5° as compared to 23.5°.
The rear suspension pickup point angle on the swingarm with respect to the frame attachment point looks similar, but given the wheelbase increase and the steel swingarm, additional volume has been freed up doing so and hence, packaging of a longer travel rear shock has been possible without making changes to the frame structure.
The rear frame needed a full revamp and is brand new. This has also likely contributed to shifting some weight towards the rear side of the vehicle and changing the weight transfer eventually. Ultraviolette has taken a hybrid approach where the rear subframe is the combination of a steel tubular unit and a cast aluminium subframe bolted together, which as a whole is bolted on the front trellis frame along with the mid shock to complete the frame of the bike.
The grab handle is worth talking about. In most motorcycles, the grab handle is a cast aluminum part that gets a lot of machining and processing. Instead, the Ultraviolette X47’s grab handle is a Thermoplastic PPS unit with molded steel inserts and with great aesthetic details.
At first glance, you won’t even notice it, but when you zoom in, you see details like texturing, inserts molded within, parting lines, ribbing, etc, and then you realise that these are injection molded parts.
Also changed is the rear sprocket. The X47 has a bigger sprocket at the rear and which improves low-end torque but reduces top speed from 155 kph to 145 kph.
Electricals
Now, let’s talk about the core electrical engineering details.
The battery pack, powertrain, motor controller, and other e-modules like ABS control unit, VCU, and DC-DC converter are carried forward from the F77. Apart from the obvious addition of a 1.6kW onboard charger and the related ACP(Alternating Current Protection) Module, the electrical architecture is mostly a carryover. However, it is the placement of the components that makes things interesting.
On the charging side, the X47 has an integrated onboard charger and has parallel charging via the boost charger. An Alternating Current Protection (ACP) Module has also been added to make sure of the safety, conditioning, and EMI-EMC due diligence needed for the onboard charger. OBC consists of a main cast aluminum enclosure with a sheet metal top cover and a bottom side fan mount, which is again sheet metal. A 6.0-watt power input is provided to the fan(axial), which is packaged behind the 12V aux battery, positioned halfway into the newly developed cast aluminum three-part rear subframe.
Given the new styling and resultant shape, there was some repackaging required. The VCU now sits on the right-hand side of the vehicle in a different orientation compared to the horizontal and centrally mounted orientation of F77.
There are a lot of cost reduction elements like using a steel swingarm, steel side stand, fewer fairings and body panels, shrouds, etc.
The Radar
The X47 is the first Indian motorcycle with a radar. The radar is a 77 GHz unit and not 24 GHz, which could have done the job as well and saved some money. But the EU has banned 24 GHz units (2022), and eventually, the X47 would head to the EU as well.
Cooling
These are air-cooled motor and battery modules. As always, UV has been super good with their aero work, and the art of channeling air has been great with this bike too. The bike, having fewer body panels now, makes it hard to guide the air as precisely as in the F77, but with whatever body panels they have, Ultraviolette has done a great job.
The motor controller and BMS, which remain the highest heat-generating modules, get the most access to cooling air, entering from the front of the bike and is then eventually directed to the rear side, where the motor sits. The configuration has been retained from F77, and the X47 does the same, where the air is directed to the gully between the motor controller and battery pack and is channeled through. This ensures a higher conductive heat transfer coefficient and hence faster heat dissipation.
The battery pack variants are carried forward from the F77 itself. No visible changes there.
There are no apparent changes to braking, and the overall weight of the bike.
