Monarch unveils AI vehicle platform

Before Monarch existed in 2015, its cofounders CTO Zachary Omohundro and CEO Praveen Penmetsa traveled to India to assemble two electric and connected tractors they had shipped over in crates. They went to a local village and had a plan to deploy the vehicles.

“We had a text messaging-based reservation system that the villagers ended up saying, ‘Nope, we're not going to use that at all,’” Omohundro told Truck & Off-Highway Engineering. Instead, the local farmers wanted to work through a local man who knew how to operate tractors. So, they pivoted.