Rajesh Rajgor talks to Khushboo Shinagare, Director of Tropicool Car Gadgets, at Prawaas 3.0 in Hyderabad and learns about their focus on introducing safety solutions to help drivers while continuing to develop new technologies
Tropicool has always put a priority on introducing innovative technologies and safety items that help drivers. Our main focus has been on driving assistance technologies. With the addition of ADAS cameras to our profile, our reverse parking assist system, reverse camera system, CCTV surveillance systems, MDVRS and other systems, our profile essentially now includes driver monitoring and driver behaviour. The full kit we are providing to public transit companies will fundamentally alter how our drivers operate. By making the driver more conscientious while driving, it increases passenger safety.
Research, Technology and Manufacturing
Despite the fact that we didn’t have a lot of work to complete during the pandemic period, we did have time and resources available. We used that to support our research and development, hire more people and focus on our future plans. Because imports are becoming more challenging due to the current economic climate and high inflation, our research team has been primarily concentrating on localisation. Specifically, they are looking at localising the chipsets used in our cameras and manufacturing all the PCBs locally. Our aim is also to reduce all the current costs.
Outlook for 2022
After the minor setback due to the pandemic, 2022 has actually been a good year. We have bounced back after recovering. Additionally, we have posted 20 per cent increase. We have a very strong roadmap for many of our products in the market that we are present in and so the growth curve has been a sort of motivation factor. Yes, it’s a long road ahead but we have the assurance of a good journey with many promising features. Tropicool has completed 20 years in 2022, which is quite an achievement. Our OEMs constantly encourage us to explore new technologies and so we keep working on introducing new products. We are always open to new developments.
New Venture
The vaccination campaigns were greatly accelerated during the pandemic and the necessity for mobile refrigeration on the go for vaccine carriers arose, thereby giving birth to a new industry vertical. This was of benefit to our company. We are also looking at the trend of EVs entering the last mile delivery market. The food chain industry and EV OEMs have been contacting us frequently with requests for refrigeration solutions that are environmentally friendly, energy-efficient and compatible with EVs. EVs require lightweight refrigeration systems, which are currently lacking.
In response to that concept, we have launched a new business called VARA, which is essentially India’s first refrigerated EV cold chain box. We think it’s an amazing breakthrough that will reduce carbon emissions to zero when someone transports any type of perishable food product using an EV with VARA. With this product, we are particularly excited to help the environment as well. It is not merely novel, but also something that will be sustainable. As such, we a visionary programme in place that will keep prompting us to explore new frontiers.