When Lukas Messner walked into Savic Motorcycles’ workshop in early 2025 and asked to be shown around, the serendipity of the moment was striking. Mechanical engineer Adrian Vinovrski had been struggling to find time in his frenetic schedule to fine-tune our first Victorian customer’s inverter, and here was an engineer who “clearly knew all about inverters”. Adrian immediately encouraged him to apply for a job.

Lukas is a mechatronics engineer – a specialised discipline that involves developing electronic controls that integrate mechanical, electrical, and software systems – systems just like the C-Series’. Lukas’ specialisation is designing inverters for large trucks and construction machines; prior to Savic, he worked for the celebrated German company, Aradex, which has won several awards developing powertrains for giant bulldozers, hybrid ships, and other innovative machines.

“It was always my dream to find a job with an Australian startup working in EVs, so I was very lucky to find Savic,” says Lukas. In fact, he credits ChatGPT, which presented the company to him as soon as he typed in “EV companies in Melbourne”.

Today, Lukas is immersed in the development of our own proprietary inverter – a process that’s led him through power, security and regulatory requirements, to the design and testing of conceptual schematics, power outputs, and mechanical components. “At Aradex, we were developing inverters for systems up to 500 kilowatts, whereas the C-Series’ will be more like 60 to 80kW, but all the working principles are the same,” he says.

Prior to COVID, Lukas spent a year in Australia working as a farmhand and welder; but returning in 2025 with his girlfriend Alice, he wanted to find “a proper job”. “I was so lucky that Savic was making the transition to vehicle deliveries, and there were still some issues with the inverter,” he says. “These small hurdles proved to be my big opportunity!