Hyderabad-based electric vehicle startup PURE EV is providing lithium batteries to healthcare tech companies that are engaged in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic across India. The batteries are being used in medical applications such as ventilators and robotic sanitation devices among others under the brand name ‘Pure Lithium.’

The start-up is incubated by IIT-Hyderabad and is working on applications for its in-house manufactured lithium batteries, which it uses primarily for the green vehicles sold under the brand Pure EV.

The company says that the comparative advantages of Pure Lithium to traditional batteries is on the back of being light weight that enables easier portability and transportation. The batteries provide high discharge currents and are designed to work under wide range of environmental conditions with customised casings and insulation. The batteries also provide significantly longer charging/discharging cycles than the standard VRLA batteries.

Rohit Vadera, CEO, Pure EV said, “Pure EV is working with more companies to supply our batteries and we are open to collaborating with more startups working towards medical devices and applications. We want to play a supportive role towards healthcare entrepreneurs. The innovative start-up ecosystem in the country has to rise to the occasion and develop applications to mitigate the effects of Covid-19.”

Under the initiative Pure EV has supplied lithium batteries to IIT Hyderabad Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE)-incubated startup Aerobiosys Innovations, which has developed a low-cost, portable, emergency-use ventilator called Jeevan Lite. This device offers protection to healthcare providers as well as it is IoT-enabled and can be operated through a phone app. The mass manufacturing of these ventilators shall be done by JCB India.

The company has is also supplying batteries to Eternal Green Innovations, which is working in the space of robotic healthcare tech devices.

Highlighting the unique capabilities of the startup in lithium batteries technology, Dr. Nishanth Dongari, founder and MD, Pure EV, and Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad said, “We have significant experience in design and development of high-performance lithium batteries through our constant innovation for EV batteries. We have state-of-the-art facilities for the assembly and testing of the lithium battery packs. In this critical time, we want to extend our best possible support to the healthcare tech industry for their requirements for backup power. The batteries designed by us are extremely useful for robotic applications and have significant advantages in terms of longer life cycles and portability.”

Pure EV was founded in 2016 by Dr. Nishanth Dongari and is led by Rohit Vadera. The company has raised funding at a valuation of $35 million (Rs 260 crore) some months ago and was incubated by IIT Hyderabad. The start-up has launched its high-speed electric scooter ‘EPluto 7G’ in February 2020. It has established a 40,000-sqft state-of-the-art facility, co-located with IIT Hyderabad, for R&D and largescale production of EVs and batteries. At present, the company has current battery manufacturing capacity of 5-Megawatt hour (Mwh) per month at its facility.