Anant Badjatya, CEO, SUN Mobility, has been associated with the organisation since March 2022. He has also worked with Stallion Group, ANC Holdings and ArcelorMittal in the past. Badjatya holds an MBA from INSEAD, and a BE in Metallurgy from REC.
How do you see battery swap and stationary charging in the EV ecosystem?
Battery swapping and fixed charging are complementary to each other. I believe that battery swapping is more for intracity purposes, and battery-fixed charging for longer distances.
Fast charging is one of the best technologies out there, but you cannot have someone wait for an hour or more for his turn to use a fast charger. You cannot place a fast charger in an expensive retail space in a city like Mumbai or Delhi. You need a place where the throughput is fast.
The second point is that batteries account for over 40% of an electric vehicle's cost. An INR 28 lakh EV is not giving you anything extra than its INR 18 lakh ICE counterpart. The cost of running is low, but you have paid extra cash upfront. Upfront cash in swappable batteries is meagre, whereas the throughput is very high.
Additionally, you don't need to worry about the advancements in the battery vertical, as the provider will take care of the same. Drivers in Chandigarh using battery swap from SUN Mobility, for example, are getting more mileage than they were getting two years back from the same vehicle without putting anything new.
But battery swap never worked in the western countries?
India is unique because 90% of our vehicles are two-wheelers and three-wheelers. So battery swap for a two or a three-wheeler is much simpler than swapping the battery for a four-wheeler. For instance, one-kilowatt-hour batteries are around seven to eight kgs. Two/three-wheelers need one or two two-kilowatt batteries to give around 60 km to 70 km range. One can easily lift these batteries and put them in the vehicle.
However, a car has a 50kW battery weighing around 350 kgs. Humans can't lift, and only a robotic arm can, but it is all about its commercials. Battery swapping has good applications in India and other developing countries like Brazil, Peru and Bangladesh because of the higher number of 2/3-wheelers.
In battery swap, the battery is charged in an ideal environment, as the battery's life depends on how they are charged.
The adoption of electric passenger vehicles is one among the lowest. Do you think enabling PVs with battery swap can help increase this adoption?
It can help increase, but today it is all about technology. It's all about commercialisation in the ecosystem. However, if the battery swap comes into cars, the market will look at electric cars being available at INR 10 lakh in India. I am not very hopeful about electric cars with swappable batteries in the near future.
Is Sun Mobility present in battery swaps as well as stationary battery charging?
We are not in fixed battery charge; we are only into battery swapping. We are setting up stations in the entire country. Those stations will also have fixed charging, but that's not our business. We are doing that because of the tender requirements.
How many battery swap systems have you installed in India so far? What's your target?
Today, we have 188 stations across 15 cities in India. Our batteries have covered over 35 million kilometres. We are the largest in terms of battery swapping in India at the moment. Sun Mobility is present across all the form factors, including two-wheelers, E-rickshaws, three-wheelers and quadricycles. The same type of batteries power all these form factors, and that's the beauty of the solution.
How many OEMs are you working with now? What does it take to integrate with an OEM?
We have integrated with more than 20 OEMs. That shows the kind of adaptability of our system and the kind of technology that SUN Mobility has developed. It generally takes three to four months to integrate with an OEM. It's like an SKU that you bring to the market. For example, when we worked with Piaggio to make the Piaggio loader, it took us much time to ensure that it was absolutely safe.
We are operating it in cold climates of Manali and environments as hot as Delhi. The technology has been tested across the spectrum. This year we will be doing around 400 stations, and by 2025 we will have around 5,000 stations across India.
Are the majority of OEMs you work with on the two or the three-wheeler side?
We are working with Piaggio, Hero electric Mayuri E-rickshaws, Terra motors; we have announced integration with Ampere. There are a few more big names that we have integrated with recently. We are working with a mix of two and three-wheeler OEMs.
What business model do you offer to these OEMs?
We have two models. We refer to them as Battery as a service (BaaS) and Mobility as a service (MaaS). Let's say you buy a Hero Electric two-wheeler with SUN Mobility integrated battery swap solution. You will need to subscribe with a small deposit. Then you pay as per the energy usage. Even if you use half of the battery and put it back in the station, you will only be charged for half of the energy used, not the full. That's how the first BaaS model works.
The second model, MaaS, helps consumers use electric vehicles without buying them. They need to go through the plans and take one. For example, they could be paying us INR 5,000 for around 2,000 kms. They do not need to make a downpayment or anything else. They do not need to worry about the AMC. This is the MaaS model.
Which business models do you think will help you generate more business?
It is 50:50 at the moment. Commercials (the loader business where the consumers work with the fleet operators.) are mostly MaaS.
Can someone reach out to SUN Mobility to set up a battery swap station in the company's name?
We aim to have about 42,000 such stations by 2030. You can imagine us as the IOCL of battery dispensing. Now, we can't own this number of stations. So we are going to create huge employment and business opportunities through franchises. We will come up with a solution in the next few months.
The investment for an individual might be in the range of INR5 lakh to INR7 lakh to set up one station. Around INR5 lakh will be refundable. The ROI would be close to 20%.
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