Charged in 15 minutes: Exponent Energy develops faster solution for electric vehicles

Founded by two former Ather Energy executives, Exponent Energy has built a battery pack and charging station – called E-pack & E-pump – that can fully charge any commercial vehicle within 15 minutes. The team has been working on this hardware innovation for the past year.

Started by Arun Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal, Exponent aims to simplify energy for EVs by building a Flexible Energy Stack.

“We now have the technologies ready and stable. It can charge a variety of cells, making us truly cell agnostic. We have charged all of these cells 800 times, each cycle being a 15 minutes charge cycle and 1-hour discharge cycle,” Vinayak told BusinessLine .

“So, it’s a far more aggressive profile than real life, because in real life you will charge in 15 minutes, but you will probably discharge over 5-6 hours. Even after 800 cycles, we’ve not lost more than 3.5 percent battery capacity. In comparison, the industry loses 20 per cent capacity in about 1,000 charging cycles,” he added. Each charging cycle is a battery charged from 0 to 100 per cent.

Targets logistic companies

The company will be using affordable Lithium-ion cells for its battery pack and offer a 3,000 cycle life warranty. Exponent is now working with few partners to get its technology to market. The company sees logistics companies as important customers, given the fact that their energy consumption is much higher than passenger electric vehicles in India.

Adding to this, Byalal said, “In India, commercial vehicles today roughly represent 10 per cent of total vehicles sold in the country, yet they consume 70 per cent of on-road energy. It’s an energy-hungry segment rushing to go electric and needs a dependable rapid charging network that lets them keep going. To fulfill this demand, we intend to actively collaborate with all industry players and regulatory bodies.”

More investments

Going forward, Exponent will be investing in cities that they open up. The company will aim to launch 20-30 public charging stations in every city, which Vinayak noted is the minimum viable network required. “By January 2022, we should have 20 charging stations starting in Bengaluru and then we plan to launch in Delhi NCR,” he added.

Vinayak believes that the shift where EVs drive better than ICE vehicles has happened in India. However, the scale is shackled by how complex and disrupted the energy flow is for EVs today – specifically the terrible charge times and battery life.

“A rapid charging solution agnostic of battery capacity, cell chemistry and the number of wheels on a vehicle is the first of many innovations that will unlock exponential scale for everyone,” he added.

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