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Chetan Maini, founder of the REVA electric car company, has revealed details about his new venture that is aiming to develop modular batteries for electric vehicles. Chetan claims that this new battery technology will remove two of the biggest disadvantages of electric vehicles - higher initial cost and lower travel range.

Chetan Maini's new company - Sun Mobility, is working on developing modular batteries that can be used across a wide range of vehicles. Such batteries will come with interchangeable sections that can be easily swapped in and out of vehicles.

The founder claims that using these batteries, prospective owners won't need to pay for the cost of the battery pack while buying a car. Instead, the battery packs will be provided as a service on a pay-as-you-go basis, similar to how fuel is retailed at the moment. Hence, if a customer's electric vehicle is low on power, he will be able to go to a nearby battery swap station and interchange his modular battery for a juiced up one.

Sun Mobility, which is a 50:50 joint venture company between Virya Mobility and Sun New Energy Systems, is expecting to start a pilot project run for this new battery technology by January 2019. The city of choice for the pilot project is Bangalore, which is currently the largest market for electric vehicles in the country. For this project, Sun Mobility will be owning the battery packs and will charge customers for the energy stored in it. The company is also planning to partner with OEMs that can use these new modular battery packs in their cars.

Sun Mobility is claiming that its new battery technology can bring down EV prices by up to 50%. Additionally, the ability to easily exchange a dying battery pack for a fully charged one will remove the disadvantage of limited range for electric vehicles.

Source: Business Standard