When one starts looking at the EV space, it becomes clear from the first instance that the major problem the ecosystem needs to solve revolve around range anxiety.
All the proposed solutions for this can be fit into two buckets — reducing the time taken to “fuel“ the EV or increasing the energy storage capacity of the battery. Our hypothesis of the industry suggests given the tight schedules of achieving the adoption rates of EV’s the industry will in short term implement the former solutions at faster pace while simultaneously continuing to support the natural evolution of industry towards sustainable cell chemistry. So concentrating on the short term for reducing the time taken to “fuel” the EV’s — the industry further debates between implementing fast charging solutions vs facilitating battery swapping networks. This debate most likely ends at a middle ground where the optimum scenario is for both fast-charging solutions and battery swapping networks to co — exist and the choice is left — and rightly so — to the consumer.
This choice is highly influenced by both the utility scenario of the vehicle (commercial vs personal) and the type/model of vehicle itself.
Given battery swapping manually can be implemented for 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers which form greater than 80% of the vehicles on Indian road of which EV’s currently form small percentage — the market organically promises growing TAM for early movers. Moving to utility driven decisions — swapping gives better economics for commercial users as it eliminates the downtime naturally involved in charging the battery while also serving in emergency cases for personal vehicles. As the industry matures, we expect the ecosystem will eventually pave way for interoperability making battery swapping as easy as filling petrol/diesel for ICE — a mechanism the consumers are highly used to. But in the current scenario — its a long shot !
EV is the Govt.’s top focus area
Observing the higher push for electric fleet operations by stakeholders giving way to EVaaS (EV as a Service)business model along with higher adoption of EV’s by the 3W owners driven by incentives by specific state governments — leads us to believe that the commercial vehicles segments in 2W and 3W will adopt EV’s at faster pace. Busting the high upfront cost barrier, government has allowed for the sale of 2W and 3W without battery — paving the way for swapping. Swapping provides better TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for commercial vehicle owners and Chargeup is positioned right at the middle of this scenario to serve their “fuel” needs.
The Network Effect
Chargeup operates a whopping 150+ battery swapping stations serving the e-rickshaws in Delhi NCR region — at the heart of India’s EV revolution. It serves more than 1200 active e-rickshaw’s daily through its network stations operated by its partners — who tend to be dealing in batteries, auto parts, tyres and electric vehicles who enjoy cordial relationships with drivers.
Techplay
Chargeup deploys tech at the core of the offering enabling constant monitoring, availability and tracking of batteries all of the data feeding into charting the future growth path of the company for optimizing the battery supply chain, financing requirements and location discovery. The asset light model of the business enables scale to meet the demand of the industry.
The co-founders come with stellar experience in scaling up businesses in the clean energy and automotive space with sharp execution capabilities. While Varun has solid background in the cleantech space with stints in the solar energy space, Ankur brings in the tech chops and valuable insights of the telecom infrastructure from his last role at Spectra.
Is battery swapping a land grab business? Yes
Is the tech built around the IoT and Telematics of long term value? Yes
Is the new battery swapping policy aligned with the business plan? Yes
Do founders have clarity on their vision for Chargeup? a 1000 times yes !
