Bounce to provide infrastructure for Greaves EVs

Bounce, a ride-sharing and e-mobility platform, announced its partnership with Greaves Retails to provide battery swapping infrastructure for its electric two-wheelers (Ampere) and three-wheelers on Tuesday.

Bounce Infinity, a brand under which Bounce provides Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS), will be setting up about 3,000 battery swapping stations as part of this partnership across 10 cities in the first phase, it said in a press statement.

The company has already started its pilot project in some of the cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Pune, Bounce Infinity Co-founder and COO Anil Giriraju told DH. "We intend to spread across 10 to 12 cities by the end of June this year," he said.

This partnership is expected to allow Ampere to reduce the cost of its electric vehicles (EVs) since batteries account for a major chunk of the cost of EVs.

However, Ampere will have to make "slight changes" to their EVs and Bounce will need to standardise its batteries to ensure compatibility.

Battery swapping technology has been touted as the catalyst for quicker adoption of EVs in India since they allow an EV user to swap their drained battery with a fully-charged one in less than a minute. This would cut short the charging wait-time that many users complain about.

Experts feel that standardisation and policy will be key for a successful implementation of battery swapping technology.

"...the policy intervention is crucial to set up the standards for battery shape, electrical connection, and mechanical loading...," said Sagar Mitra, an IIT Bombay professor who is researching lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles.

Interoperability standards and standardisation policy will be required to ensure the safety of EVs and prevent fire-related accidents caused by using incompatible batteries.

Bounce runs a homologation process with International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) to ensure the safety of the EV and the user before every such integration, Giriraju said.

Homologation is the process of certifying an automobile that has satisfied the required standards to ensure the safety of the vehicle.

Check out latest DH videos here