SUN Mobility Hosts Heavy Vehicle Battery Swapping Workshop

Signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with bus operators in the state to accelerate the EV transition in the heavy vehicle segment.

Chennai- SUN Mobility Private Limited., a provider of energy infrastructure and services for electric vehicles (EVs), showcased India’s first modular battery-swapping technology for heavy electric vehicles (HEVs) at an event in Chennai, attended by over 100 private bus operators and associations from Tamil Nadu.

SUN Mobility, in partnership with Veera Vahana a bus manufacturer, showcased an integrated electric mobility solution for buses and trucks at Prawaas 4.0, hosted by the Bus & Car Operators Confederation of India (BOCI). The event highlighted the importance of electrifying heavy vehicle fleets to reduce emissions and improve efficiency, attracting over 10,000 inquiries. A workshop for Tamil Nadu bus operators detailed the cost benefits and how the solution matches diesel buses in cost and refueling convenience.

During the event SUN Mobility signed MOUs with several leading bus operators in the region, emphasising the game-changing potential of battery-swapping technology in heavy-duty vehicle electrification.

Mr. Ashok Agarwal, CEO- HEV, SUN Mobility, said, "SUN Mobility has transformed HEVs by addressing key challenges faced by bus operators, including high ownership costs, limited financing options, prolonged downtime due to lengthy charging, and the burden of deploying charging infrastructure. Our modular swapping technology offers a practical, cost-effective solution that boosts efficiency and lowers operational costs for operators.”

Battery swapping will bring down the upfront cost of the buses by 40%, making it comparable to the upfront cost of traditional ICE buses and this coupled with easy access to financing will break the entry barrier for adoption of EVs by fleet owners. Further, it reduces operational costs of fleet operators by up to 20%, while increasing uptime and higher utilization of buses owing to the swift swapping process of under three minutes. In Tamil Nadu, mofussil operations have a unique use-case with very high trip frequency with buses doing 6 to 8 trips in a 1 day (16 hours of operations), where buses plying in a route have 2-10 minutes of gap between them. Such operations will not be possible with fixed battery vehicles which has at least 3 hours of charging required. Battery swapping can provide the right solution for these operations. The compact and light form factor of the battery ensures higher payload-carrying capacities.