India is getting an electrical three-wheeler passenger automobile that fees from 0 to 100% in quarter-hour. The launch of the brand new EV — a collaboration between auto producer Omega Seiki Mobility and battery-tech startup Exponent Power — comes amid India’s ambition to electrify 80% of all its three-wheelers by 2030 in an effort to cut back emissions.

The brand new three-wheeler, known as the Stream Metropolis Qik and priced at $3,900 (324,999 Indian rupees), launched Friday and can go on sale from Might 15 in Delhi and Bengaluru. It’s a tackle the earlier Omega Stream Metropolis and carries an 8.8kWh proprietary battery pack to ship over 86 miles (126 kilometers) of vary. It’s outfitted with Exponent Power’s charging tech, which the startup claims totally fees a battery in quarter-hour when linked on the startup’s charging station (dubbed e^pump).

At present, Exponent Power has 60 charging stations in six cities: Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad. It plans to have 100 charging stations in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru in 2024 and 1,000 stations in whole by 2025, all of which will likely be accessible to drivers of the Stream Metropolis Qik, in accordance with the corporate.

The partnership signifies an enlargement for Exponent Power into the brand new territory, because the Bengaluru-based startup beforehand solely supplied its fast charging tech for three-wheelers to cargo and fleet operations. India’s passenger three-wheeler section is over 4x the variety of cargo three-wheelers, per authorities information. The section grew by greater than 43%, with over 45,000 three-wheeler passenger autos bought in January alone.

Three-wheeler autos are fashionable with gig employees in India who use them to move ride-hail passengers and ship packages. The Indian authorities has been incentivizing corporations to spur electrical three-wheeler manufacturing and has sponsored their gross sales to draw prospects.

The partnership between Exponent Power and Omega Seiki builds on the previous’s earlier partnerships. In 2022, Exponent labored with Reliance Industries-backed Altigreen and Indian conglomerate Murugappa Group-owned Montra Electrical to launch cargo three-wheelers outfitted with its quick charging tech. The startup additionally partnered with Magenta Mobility, funded by Morgan Stanley and BP Ventures, and Fyn Mobility to supply fast charging on their fleet. Over 1,000 autos, finishing over 100,000 charging periods, presently have Exponent Power’s tech, which the startup goals to develop to 25,000 by 2025.

“We began with cargo to show out the tech,” Arun Vinayak, co-founder and CEO of Exponent Power, informed TechCrunch in an interview. “As we scaled, we realized that particular person drivers actually love fast charging as a result of these guys can’t cost their autos at house. And they’re way more hungry to do extra kilometers… they should hold working, hold going wherever the demand is and go wherever the passenger must go.”

Exponent Power and Omega Seiki Mobility ran shut controller pilots for the final couple of months to check client habits. They discovered three-wheelers carrying as much as three passengers typically run for as much as 22 hours a day, with two drivers utilizing them sequentially to exploit intra-city demand. This makes it essential for the passenger three-wheelers to entry quick charging. The opposite various to fast charging on this case might be battery swapping, however that doesn’t work at scale, in accordance with Vinayak.

“Until you quickly cost a swap battery, you run out of batteries. And since these are swappable batteries, you might be restricted within the measurement of batteries and have a reasonably restricted vary,” he mentioned.

The tech behind the three-wheeler improve

Exponent Power’s battery tech includes lithium-ion batteries together with its in-house battery administration system, which screens each cell in actual time when on charging. Moreover, the startup has its personal charging stations that use an off-board thermal administration system, which transfers refrigerated water by way of the charging plug. This helps preserve the temperature of each battery cell whereas charging and makes 0-100% charging potential in quarter-hour together with a 3,000-cycle life guarantee.

Vinayak informed TechCrunch that Exponent Power’s charging stations provide 10x effectivity by charging 20 to 30 autos every day, whereas different EV charging stations usually cost two autos. Equally, establishing an Exponent charging station prices almost $6,000 (500,000 Indian rupees), whereas a CNG station calls for lots of and hundreds of {dollars}. This has restricted the supply of CNG to round 60 stations in Bengaluru, whereas Exponent Power already has 40 charging stations within the metropolis, the manager mentioned.

Picture Credit: Omega Seiki Mobility

“In the event you give individuals very fast refueling functionality, very fast recharging functionality, a dependable and dense sufficient community, individuals really cease caring about vary,” he acknowledged.

The Stream Metropolis Qik will likely be initially accessible in Delhi and Bengaluru, with plans to enter new cities later this yr. Omega Seiki Mobility can also be optimistic about taking its rapid-charging three-wheeler to markets past India as soon as it positive aspects sufficient traction.

“I can open up markets all throughout the globe. We’ve got testing occurring all throughout Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, Africa,” Uday Narang, founder and chairman of Omega Seiki Mobility, informed TechCrunch.

New Delhi-based Omega Seiki Mobility has an annual capability of manufacturing 20,000 autos, with three factories in North India and one within the jap state of Jharkhand. Exponent Power, however, has a month-to-month capability of constructing 500 charging models, which it plans to extend to three,000 by July-August.

At $3,900 (324,999 Indian rupees), the Stream Metropolis Qik is competitively priced with different electrical and gas-powered three-wheelers in the marketplace in India. Vinayak and Narang mentioned they aren’t seeking to beat the competitors on the pricing however wish to assist eradicate the charging nervousness amongst three-wheeler drivers and enhance their month-to-month earnings by as much as 30%.

Based in 2020, Exponent Power, which counts Eight Roads Ventures, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions and TDK Ventures amongst its key buyers, has raised $44.4 million thus far. The startup generated an annual recurring income of $6 million in 2023 and goals to achieve about $72 million by 2025. It’s also seeking to deploy its charging tech on electrical buses in India later this yr.