Swappable batteries will be half the size of a regular battery, require less lithium and last longer: Chetan Maini, SUN Mobility

Chetan Maini was there at the beginning of it all. As the man who gave the world the Reva (G-Wiz in international markets) Maini has watched the EV space grow from its embryonic stages to what it is today. Now the Chairman of SUN Mobility – one of the leading brands offering interoperability and swappable battery solutions for EVs, he is perfectly placed to address the many questions and concerns about the Central Government’s battery swapping policy. Will it hamper innovation? Will it lead to a supply-chain bottleneck somewhere down the line? And most importantly, will it transform India’s EV industry for better or worse? In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Maini patiently offers his invaluable counsel on all things EV and the role India can play on the global EV stage.

Below are edited excerpts from the interview:

As a stalwart in the EV space, what do you make of the current battery swapping policy?

At a very broad level, if I think from an Indian context it really helps reduce up-front cost, solve range anxiety, and reduce recharging time. It could contribute to about 30-40 percent growth in the EV market, which is very important. The second thing is that swappable batteries in general, do make more business sense and will be half the size, because swappable units tend to be smaller. And you can look at about six times less lithium being imported into the country.

Thirdly, one of the major concerns that people have with fixed battery vehicles is what happens to them after two-three years. So this whole concern of battery life goes away which for a customer is really critical. We’ve had some customers cross 100,000 km in two years, if they use fixed batteries at high temperatures, they’re unlikely to last that long. We’ve been very successful globally with two-wheelers and small cars, because we’ve created an ecosystem in the country that drove us to be a global player.

I do believe that swapping in an organised manner in the country can enable us to create solutions that allow us to not only export products in the future, but also solutions. It’s the details of the upcoming policy which will make things clearer.

What sort of solutions do you think we can provide to the world?

In the future, EVs with swapping solutions will come with stations, batteries, software solutions – India’s very good at that. So if we have a chance to prove that and work that out in South East Asia, South America, Africa etc –  places which have India-like markets that are behind in the EV space, we should. This allows us to have a multi-pronged strategy. For example in India if five OEMs are using swapping, you can go as a country as a consortium which is far better than “one company one solution”. That allows us to play on a global market but we have to make it successful in India first.

Is it safe to assume that this policy will only benefit electric-two-wheelers and three-wheelers?

I think the low-hanging fruit is two and three-wheelers. So you address those first. The other low-hanging fruit is small four-wheelers for load-carrying, especially in the e-commerce space. And then there are buses. They have fixed routes and so swappable batteries reduce the costs of infrastructure. That’s where we should start.

And, then, come to cars. Cars I would see as more relevant in the taxi segment. Because it’s about how many kilometres you run. If you’re doing about 30-40 kms a day with a privately owned EV, you can charge it at home or at work. But if you’re a taxi service running 12 hours a day, running over 200+ km, you can’t wait for hours to recharge. Swapping would take up as much time as refuelling does. Once a network is established for shared mobility, then the personal mobility players will come.

Battery optimisation is such a key USP for an automaker, do you think that taking away that edge from e2W or even e3W manufacturers is likely to affect the efficacy or the appeal of EVs?

Yes and no. And I say that because in battery swapping you also have technologies that enable you to have that without compromise. Company-based technologies vs swapping as an overall thought process are very different nuanced approaches. And I think it’s important to separate the two. So in this case for example, our batteries are compatible with two and three-wheelers because we feel that they should be interoperable.

So, the performance of our batteries is very high. And you have a little onboard computer that’s between the battery and the vehicle which we customise for the OEM. So this way the OEM is able to get what they want in terms of performance and feel. We’ve been doing this for over 20 years so we have a lot of experience in battery management. We (at SUN Mobility) come from OEM backgrounds. We are ahead in that area. But if the battery swapping solution provider cannot give that then I agree with your point of view.

What role does SUN Mobility intend to play in India’s new battery swapping ecosystem? What sort of interoperability standards can be set, and will SUN play a role in that?

We started out in 2017. We have over five OEM products that we’ve integrated. Five to six of them have been launched in the marketspace. Our solutions are compatible across two and three-wheelers. Our tech has been tested over 15 million kilometres with over a million swaps. Fully automated, running across 14 cities. We already have a partnership with IOC, you can swap a battery at select IOC stations. Today we’ve integrated with multiple OEMs and multiple platforms.

The same station and battery could cater to multiple brands. This brings in efficiency. As the policies roll out, what is important for us to consider is that, this technology is in its infancy, so the policies should encourage innovation. If you bought a scooter, two three years down the line, the battery will be at about 70 percent of its capacity. If you had a swappable solution, two or three years down the line, your battery would be better because it would feature new technology. So you, as a customer, have got a technology that’s far better. We have to make sure that the consumer gets access to innovation. Let the market evolve over a period of time.

"Swapping in an organised manner in the country can enable us to create solutions that allow us to not only export products in the future," said Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility.

A recent report by the International Energy Agency pointed at potential supply chain bottlenecks that we might be looking at in the not-too-distant future? Would a swapping ecosystem, where there are considerably more batteries in the market than there are EVs, not add to such an issue?

Actually it reduces it. For example, our three-wheelers use batteries that are half the size of a fixed battery three-wheeler. There’s approximately 0.3 of that in the fleet. So the use of lithium is a lot less. The combination of the life cycle of the battery which is much higher with swappable ones, and the size which is much smaller, allows you to have at least four times less lithium requirement. A regular battery may charge once a day which would last you a 1000 swappable cycles. A swappable unit may be charged twice a day, with twice the amount of cycles so the energy output is much more. This gives you much better results.

What sort of regulatory measures, when it comes to mining battery materials, do you think need to and are likely to be placed in the future, at a global policy level?

The first aspect is lithium. A lot of good frameworks are coming out on the lithium mining side. Then there’s cobalt which is coming out of very selected areas, like Congo. What you’ve also seen is that the newer technologies are using less cobalt. So the ratio of those materials being used in relation to each other has changed. Other technology like lithium ion phosphate which Tesla has also incorporated, which doesn’t use cobalt at all. As industries and technologies mature the best practises will come forward. Sustainability is important to companies and when they demand it, it would make things better.

What sort of subsidies in battery swapping subscriptions and regulations would you like to see placed within this framework?

We have to make sure that the market has some time to decide. Let it evolve. I think standards around the safety side should be there. The consumer should be aware of this area because there are always going to be challenges. One size battery cannot fit everything. If the OEM has put one battery and someone else puts another battery in there, who will take responsibility? It has to be a collaborative approach where the battery companies and OEMs work to integrate their technologies. Similarly if someone took their own battery and put it in another station, and the batteries are different, their profiles are different and you have to be very safe. It may be difficult to achieve some of these interoperability areas.

We’ve seen successful solutions in the cell phone industry where you have the same hardware but different technologies are tethered to it. Multiple operators, sim card sizes, attachments, accessories. There may be multiple operators, some will want higher performance batteries. The idea is that the customer should be able to choose between multiple solution providers. They may not be interoperable with each other, but they would give you the option of choosing between different service providers.

The OEM is able to ensure that the safety is managed. The consumer has an option. If I’m using a platform, I don’t have to be interoperable with another platform. If I can choose between one platform. This allows us to have the OEMs select different providers. Battery standards could come, which could be one of the many new innovations that can come out.

The key here is the policy framework. Today the customer isn’t getting subsidies for swappable batteries. So they’re at a bit of a disadvantage. If they take a vehicle and there’s a GST difference, we have to fix that anomaly. The GST differential on the swappable batteries (18 percent on swappable batteries as opposed to 5 percent on fixed ones).

The customer is paying 13 percent extra for going green. That needs to be fixed first. When battery makers see that it is being fixed they will all come on board and we build the ecosystem together. Then comes the areas around standardisation, where the policies have to make battery swapping, technology agnostic for the consumer.

"Our tech has been tested over 15 million kilometres with over a million swaps," said Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility.

Today, if you buy an EV, you get Rs 15,000 off per kWh for two and four wheelers and Rs 10,000 per kWh for three wheelers. A similar certification process needs to be brought to swappable batteries and subscription services. The size of the battery is much less here, and if there’s a way to bring in a concession for using it, that’ll be good. It can be less than the subsidy for a fixed-battery EV. The second thing is what the Delhi state government has done, where 50 percent of the subsidy goes to the consumer and 50 percent goes through the service provider. So something similar should be implemented.

But if technology changes very rapidly, and say, solid state batteries come into play. Are you saying that such radical innovation, in the case of a swappable ecosystem will benefit the consumer? What about the manufacturer who has invested in a certain number of batteries?

An OEM needs to define outer dimensions that can fit the vehicle. Like a sim card. Don’t exceed a dimension like the phone companies that design a sim card. You could adapt to new technologies, if the battery dimensions remain the same that’s what we do. Our batteries have remained the same size but have become more efficient.

We’ve seen this in the smartphone ecosystem as well, where too many accessories and their compatibility can increase the overall cost of the product. Could that happen here?

Yes and no because it’s giving the consumer that option. The consumer wants a certain advantageous technology. They have to adhere to an operating network because there’s a safety concern at vehicle level and at the station level. If at the station you will have a supplier swap a certified battery for a low-cost one and that causes a problem, what do you do? Both the customer and the solutions provider have to benefit from choice.

As a pioneering figure in India’s EV space, what do you make of the EV market in the last two decades? From the Reva to where we are today. And where do you see the EV market in India going?

Having done this for over 20 years, what I’m seeing in the last 12-24 months is that there’s a sea of changes. When it comes to petrol prices, when it comes to renewable energy today it makes a lot more sense. Twenty years ago the government removed subsidies and increased taxes on electrics. Today they’re rolling out subsidies. And there’s a major shift in the consumer mindset. Technology has changed. The performance of a high-end e-scooter is better than a petrol scooter. Today the price of the batteries is a 10th of what it was two decades ago.