Sun Mobility, a leading provider of energy infrastructure and services for electric vehicles (EVs), and SmartE, an EV fleet operator, have entered into a partnership for providing battery swapping service.

The two companies will leverage their expertise in product and solution to drive convenient, affordable and zero-emission last-mile connectivity for the national capital region (NCR), the companies said on Wednesday.

In April, Sun Mobility showcased the inter-operable smart mobility solution for 2- and 3-wheelers and this is the first-of-its-kind deployment in the country for electric 3-wheelers.

SmartE’s fleet of electric three-wheelers will make use of Sun Mobility’s solution and will be deployed at SmartE Park and Charge Hubs across Delhi-NCR, to bolster its first and last-mile connectivity services.

Field trials

The month-long field trials for this solution were successfully concluded in Gurugram last week and the partnership will see Sun Mobility scaling the battery swapping infrastructure over the next three months to support 500 electric three-wheelers in Phase-I.

“Conventional electric three-wheelers that run on lead-acid batteries usually require eight hours of overnight charging and four hours of opportunity charge during the day. The assets remain idle half of the time during the day and could only cover 60-80 km which cause a loss of potential revenue,” Chetan Maini, Co-founder and Vice-Chairman, Sun Mobility, said. But, swapping enables them to realise the full potential of last-mile transport and clock more than 150 km per day and therefore, through this partnership, ‘refuelling’ of EVs will be faster, cheaper and more convenient to adopt, he added.

“SmartE plans to roll out 1,00,000 vehicles by 2022, which will help reduce close to a million tonnes of carbon emissions, equivalent of planting 17 million trees per year,” Goldie Srivastava, Co-founder and CEO, SmartE, said.

Affordability

SmartE has an ongoing partnership with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and delivers nearly 80,000 rides to commuters daily.

Since the swapping solutions are easy to set up, many companies are opening up to this idea for EVs.

For instance, Twenty-two Motors and Kymco recently tied-up for providing swapping of battery facility.