India is on the cusp of an e-mobility revolution led by the two-wheeler and three-wheeler vehicle segments.
As we inch towards the goal of limiting our GHG (greenhouse gases) emissions and protecting our environment, we need to heavily rely on advanced solutions like battery swapping to reduce environmental pollution.
Battery swapping involves exchanging discharged batteries for charged ones and provides customers the flexibility to charge them separately.
It also has the potential to enhance the attractiveness of electric mobility by addressing the issues related to building a sustainable EV ecosystem, the challenges associated with recharging electric vehicles (EVs), and most importantly, working towards a cleaner environment.
According to ResearchAndMarkets, the global electric vehicle battery swapping market is expected to be worth $229.1 million in 2022 and reach $690.81 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 24.7 percent.
In Budget FY 2022-23, the government announced plans to release a battery swapping policy and interoperability standards. In April 2022, Niti Aayog introduced a draft battery swapping policy to ensure faster-scale adoption of EVs by making them more efficient, affordable, and accessible.
Many startups are now actively investing to reach this solution at the grassroots level. Here are some companies that are providing battery swapping facilities to two and three-wheelers in India.
Sun Mobility
Founded in 2017 by Chetan Maini, Uday Khemka, Ajay Goel, and Anant Badjatya, Bengaluru-based is an innovative technology platform that enables battery swapping solutions.
It offers interoperable smart mobility solutions for EVs, separating the battery from the vehicle and thereby bringing down the upfront cost of EVs, making them financially viable.
The startups’ vision is to create a universal network of interoperable energy infrastructure to accelerate mass adoption of electric mobility.
Sun Mobility has collaborated with battery cell technology providers, vehicle manufacturers, oil marketing companies, fleet operators, aggregators, and cities across the ecosystem to enable quicker adoption of its solution.
In October 2021, the startup raised $50 million from Vitol to accelerate and expand its services across India and select global markets.
Battery Smart
Delhi-based , founded in 2020 by Pulkit Khurana and Siddharth Sikka, is a network of EV-battery swapping stations for electric three-wheeler rickshaws and two-wheelers.
The startup offers advanced Lithium-ion batteries to e-rickshaws on a subscription basis, where the driver can stop at any of the startup’s partner swapping stations and get a fully charged battery against a discharged battery. The replacement charge per battery is Rs 25,000 to Rs 28,000.
Battery Smart aims to improve the livelihood of e-rickshaw drivers and strives to double their daily earnings.
In November 2021, the startup raised $7 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Blume Ventures and Orios Ventures to strengthen its battery assignment technology, expand, and scale its operations.
Chargeup
Varun Goenka and Akshay Kashyap founded the New Delhi-based startup in 2019 to provide a battery swapping network for electric two- and three-wheeler vehicles.
The startup claims to have adopted an advanced technology-driven approach to offer battery as a service (BaaS) solutions to e-rickshaw drivers.
Chargeup enables e-rikshaw drivers to join the service without any upfront cost. This allows drivers to visit the swapping station as many as two to three times a day to swap the discharged batteries with charged batteries.
The startup claims to have 100 swapping stations and 800 drivers on the platform.
In February 2022, Chargeup raised $2.5 million from Capital A, Anicut Capital, Tiger Shroff, Aman Gupta, Shraddha Gupta, and Sameer Mehta to expand its network in new cities and to build bigger capacities.
RACEnergy
Founded by BITS Pilani alumni Arun Sreyas and Gautham Maheswaran in 2018, Hyderabad-based RCEnergy develops cost-efficient battery swapping stations and swappable batteries for use in three-wheelers.
It also builds high-performance powertrains for use in three-wheeler vehicles.
The startup was founded to accelerate the adoption of electric mobility with its affordable electric powertrains that give better performance than its ICE counterparts and include tracking, security functions, and safety.
It provides an integrated solution by taking the cost of the battery out of the vehicle and offering energy as a service through a network of swapping stations.
In August 2021, RACEnergy raised $1.3 million led by Micelio Fund, growX ventures, Huddle, Prophetic Ventures, BITSian Angels, and other angel investment firms to enhance R & D, scale the company’s swapping technology and infrastructure, and fulfil pre-orders received in Hyderabad and surrounding Tier II cities.
BatteryPool
Pune-based , founded by Ashwin Shankar in 2018, is a tech stack that provides real-time, actionable insight to fleet operators to eliminate operational challenges in running EVs and improve utilisation of the vehicles.
The startup is deploying and building technology-driven SaaS and hardware solutions that are crafted to meet the needs of EV fleet operators. It is an IoT enabled, battery agnostic, swapping station and an API-first software ecosystem.
Its IoT swapping stations are customisable to battery specifications, integratable with existing CRM via Open API, and designed for Indian ambient conditions.
The startup claims that its IoT vehicle tracking system will help with vehicle locations, vehicle diagnostics, and battery charge level.
In August 2021, BatteryPool raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from IAN and others to scale up business development efforts and add new fleet charging products to its portfolio.
