MUMBAI: A Pune-based energy distribution startup on Friday unveiled plans to introduce mobile electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in Pune and Mumbai in coming months.
These vehicles, whose prototype was released at an event on Friday, will not just arrive at your place to recharge two-wheelers or cars, but will provide only clean fuel as against electricity procured from fossil fuels like coal. Each vehicle can recharge upto 20 two-wheelers and a few cars, with four dispensers.
Repos, the startup, signed a MoU in Mumbai on Friday with ‘waste to power’ organisation Urja Bio System Pvt Ltd and BATX Energies in presence of Union minister of MSME Narayan Rane. “Our vision is to move towards a carbon-neutral future and we are storing the clean energy (from waste) in recycled batteries — which will be stacked up on the mobile vehicle and used for recharging bikes and cars,” said Aditi Bhosale Walunj, founder of Repos.
Repos CEO Chetan Walunj said that in a few months, when the mobile vehicle is launched, users can just use an app to book the vehicle slot. “It will help those cars or bikes which get stranded on the road due to dead batteries and also those who do not have EV charging stations in their vicinity,” he said, adding there were plans to operate such vehicles across the country in future. “We will encourage startups to take ownership of the vehicles.
Gajanan Patil director Urja Bio System said that the group was targeting huge dumping grounds to convert waste into energy. “We have a power generation plant in Pune and will take electricity from another plant in Mira-Bhayander area to serve the Mumbai area,” he said.
“This is a unique project that accumulates power generated through waste into recycled second life batteries and then carries out the distribution through the mobile vehicles,” added Utkarsh Singh, CEO of BATX Energies, which will supply second life recycled batteries.
The solution, where empty batteries can be exchanged for charged-up ones, is still in nascent stages in China, the world’s largest EV market, where it is anchored in strong government policy.