India’s Exponent Energy may have found the secret to 15 min rapid EV charging

 Bangalore-based Exponent Energy may have found a way to fast-charge electric vehicles in 15 minutes. The startup, which just raised his $13 million Series A, utilizes a combination of proprietary battery packs and charging infrastructure to achieve such performance.

Exponent Energy's business model targets his OEMs who manufacture commercial electric vehicles for their fleets. Ideally, the company would work with his OEM to integrate a battery pack or e^pack that can be quickly recharged via Exponent's network of chargers or e^pumps. Earlier this month, Exponent announced its first partnership with Indian electric lorry manufacturer Altigreen, launching his Exponent-enabled Altigreen neEV HD. The log is 100% full. The problem is that the battery packs only charge as fast as they would if they were charged by Exponent's charging infrastructure. The company says the e^pack takes about 60 minutes to charge at a standard charging station. Similarly, E^pumps don't provide the same fast charging for all EVs, so the two need to be scaled side by side. In this way, Exponent hopes to monetize its energy products. Exponent co-founder and CEO Arun Vinayak said he will make money from both selling the battery packs to his OEMs and charging them regularly.

By way of comparison, Exponent's business model resembles that of his Gogoro, a Taiwanese company building exchange stations across the country while working with his OEMs to integrate swappable batteries into electric motorcycles. increase. Aside from the monetization logic of including the battery pack and charging infrastructure as a bundle, Vinayak said it makes sense from a technology standpoint.

“A 15-minute fast charge is a two-way problem,” he says Vinayak. "It's not just a battery, it's also a charger. The e^pump delivers 600A of current (15 times the industry standard) to the e^pack, while managing individual cell characteristics, including temperature and Celsius It ensures safety, long battery life and consistent performance even at 50 degrees.Our technology is present on both sides so we can control the flow of energy more efficiently, safely and quickly.”

Building such a network requires funding, and this is where Exponent's Series A comes in. Led by Lightspeed, with participation from YourNest VC, 3one4 Capital and AdvantEdge VC, this round will be used to scale up the e^pump network in 100 locations in each of Exponent's expanding cities. According to Vinayak, Delhi. The company also plans to deploy 2,000 of his Exponent-enabled vehicles as part of its partnership with Altigreen.

Vinayak said the e^pack is scalable across multiple forms his factor, and Exponent Energy is currently in the development stage of partnerships in other segments, particularly his three-wheeled passenger vehicles and his four-wheeled freight vehicles. .

“Our main target is commercial vehicles and our main customers are everyone who operates fleets, from single vehicle owners to aggregators of thousands of vehicles,” he said. He told TechCrunch in an email. “In India, commercial vehicles have the highest energy consumption per vehicle (representing 10% of vehicles, but consume 70% of our energy on the road). It represents a highly concentrated market for energy companies like EVs, as the segment is already grappling with the transition to electric vehicles, with EVs driving better than their diesel counterparts. However, the bottleneck for adoption is energy, as slow charging (3-6 hours) affects operation, forcing customers to choose larger batteries with shorter lifespans, resulting in higher vehicle ownership costs. increase."

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