Swap logic

HOW BATTERY SMART TURNED A GROUND-UP INSIGHT INTO A SCALABLE MODEL FOR EVERYDAY ELECTRIC MOBILITY

- S SHANTHI

PULKIT KHURANA AND Siddharth Sikka did not arrive at Battery Smart through a single flash of insight.

The idea emerged gradually, shaped by time spent with drivers and fleet operators, listening to what slowed them down.Across cities, millions of e-rickshaws were running on lead-acid batteries that demanded hours of charging every night, frequent replacements, and regular maintenance. The costs were not abstract. Downtime meant lost income, day after day.

Two questions kept surfacing. What if drivers did not have to own the battery? And what if a drained battery could be swapped for a charged one in a couple of minutes? Battery swapping, Khurana would later say, could cut upfront costs by around 40%, improve uptime and raise earnings, easing the shift to cleaner mobility. The insight was simple, but the implications were not.