Sun Mobility plans to set up 10,000 mini-swap stations by the end of FY25

Chetan Maini, Chairman of battery swapping and energy company Sun Mobility believes that 2023 will be the year of Indian EVs. He believes battery swapping will assist EV makers, especially the two and three-wheelers, to reduce their prices by 40 percent and widen the scope of adoption.

At the AutoExpo 2023, the Bengaluru-based energy company showcased electric motorcycles with swappable technology and also unveiled its new battery — the S2.1 — offering a higher power with 45 percent more range along with SwapX, the micro automated battery-swapping solution.

SwapX caters to a mass customer base especially small and medium businesses like pharmacy chains, and department stores to set up and manage Swap Points from the convenience of their stores. The solution will address concerns of lack of infrastructure and long charging or waiting time by increasing network density and encouraging mass-scale adoption of EVs. Sun mobility's S2.1 battery provides an enhanced capacity of 2.1 kW and is also AIS156 Phase One certified.

With the mini swap stations coming into play Sun Mobility plans to double from 3,00,000 swaps in December 2022 to about 6,00,000 swaps during the FY24 period.

Sharing the announcement and entry into the battery swapping retail distribution space, Maini said, “We are involving every store in India’s EV revolution while strengthening the growing electric mobility network in the country.”

He further added that you could be a supermarket, a grocery store, a tire company, a service centre, or a panwala. “The station has wheels which can easily be pulled and pushed back into the store giving the convenience to have another line of revenue for the entrepreneur and it is scalable. You can add and stack, automatically. Everything is automatic, plug and play,” he said. 

The company, which currently runs close to 250 swapping stations, plans to set up 10,000 mini-swap stations by the end of FY25. Strong growth coming in due to the reduced total cost of operations has seen Sun adding close to 60 swap stations in December alone.

The swapping major currently works with leading two to three-wheeler OEMs like Piaggo, Omega Seiki Mobility, Greaves Electric Mobility and E-rickshaw maker Saera Auto is in talks with 10 new OEMs ready to be onboarded to the Sun Mobility network.

This will see Sun’s vehicle deployments jump nine times from the current 20,000 vehicles on road to 1,80,000 vehicles by the end of FY24 which is further expected to reach 6,00,00 vehicles by 2025.