‘Fuelling’ EVs With All Their Electronics Needs

Did you know that till around two years back, 90% of all the battery management systems—the brains of the batteries—that go into Indian electric two- and three-wheelers were procured from China? Ujjwal Bhardwaj, the CEO of Gurugram based Electrifuel, shared this fact and more, while claiming that startups like theirs are working to bridge that gap between the EV technology expectations and supply in India. When four college boys started to cut a second-hand Splendor motorcycle to fit a BLDC motor controller, a self-assembled battery and its management system, the by passers used to watch curiously. But why did the boys do so? “To bring the EV technology to the masses,” says Ujjwal Bhardwaj, one of the four boys and the CEO of an EV technology startup named Electrifuel, which was born out of popular encouragement and personal dedication to revolutionising Indian electric mobility. The startup provides the needed inside infrastructure for battery manufacturers and EV OEMs and claims to reduce their market turnaround time.

“We are building a complete EV technology stack starting from the physical layer which will have BMS, VCU, onboard and offboard chargers, swapping station, and telematics module to the back-end SaaS infrastructure,” explains Ujjwal when questioned about their current venture. The 2017-born startup caters to battery manufacturers, fleet operators, and swapping station operators. He clears that Electrifuel has not yet entered into the domain of components like clusters, as they are very ergonomically and uniquely designed for every vehicle model. Currently, the startup provides 16 hardware offerings under three verticals related to BMS, telematics, and charging. Talking about their “chemistry-agnostic” 16S Smart BMS designed especially for EVs, Ujjwal notes that it is certified for the latest AIS 156 standard requirements and supports battery paralleling and hot swapping as well. Electrifuel boasts of providing customised features to battery manufacturers, like application-optimised hardware, onboard data storage, firmware functions, and io options which are not provided by other BMS offerings in the market. As per Ujjwal, their products are priced in the range of ₹1,000-8,000, depending on the variant.

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