Bengaluru-based electric mobility start-up Yulu said that it has achieved more than 3 million battery swaps till date making it India’s largest Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) operator through its ‘Max Network’. By the end of 2022, the company plans to expand its fleet to 1 lakh units from 10,000 today.
Max Network, the company says, is a unique energy infrastructure with high-capacity back-end charging stations and a dense network of conveniently located, customer-facing swapping stations. According to reports, the company plans to raise $100 million to expand its service network across 10 cities.
“Completing 3 million swaps as India’s largest Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) is a great milestone, and in a way it's just the start. As the largest player in shared EV mobility, Yulu has always thought of mobility and energy together, and hence has focused on building both of these in tandem, right from the start,” Amit Gupta, CEO & co-founder, Yulu, said.
Gupta plans to grow the network to 3 million swaps every month. “We believe 2022 is a defining year for India’s EV market and Yulu is well positioned to lead this transition. The policy, announced by the Hon’ble Finance Minister in the Union Budget 2022, will focus on developing a complete framework to encourage battery swapping, including regulatory, operational, and technological factors,” he said.
Backed by marquee investors like Bajaj Auto, Blume, 3One4, WaveMaker, and Rocketship, the company wants to make mobility-as-a-service mainstream and claims to have helped save over 10,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions so far.
The Max Network by Yulu uses Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to predict and fulfill battery requirements across its network based on demand patterns and trends, to ensure uninterrupted energy availability to its users.
“As a company with deep experience in operating shared mobility on the ground, Yulu is actively contributing to the policy discussions with policy makers and key Government offices and we hope to collaborate with them to create a policy roadmap that will help accelerate and scale up the infrastructure for EVs and shared mobility in the country." Gupta added.