Valerio Electric is a startup which is building a mobile application for locating and booking charging slots for electric vehicles (EVs). This will be an aggregator application which displays charging stations operated by different companies. They plan to use real-time data from sensors in charging ports to help gauge the occupancy at a station and estimate the time required for the current users to finish charging their vehicles. The users of the application will then be alerted based on this data and re-routed to the nearest station that has empty slots. These slots can be pre-booked to enjoy a hassle-free charging service. The startup’s long-term goal is to make IoT-based solar charging infrastructure feasible across the country.
Sarthak Mahapatra, one of the three co-founders of the startup, told the English Press Club about how his experience designing and manufacturing EVs for the technical team—Inspired Karters-Electric—led to the inception of this startup. The issues he faced while buying a charger for the EV they built, led to him doing some research into charger availability. He realized that while there are some companies which manufacture chargers, there is no central platform which acts as an aggregator to facilitate easy charging for the end-user. He believes that there is a lack of awareness amongst users about the EV charging services available.
Sarthak, commenting on the Indian EV market, alluded to the “the chicken or the egg” problem, opining that automobile manufacturers do not want to risk investing in full-scale EVs without the existence of a sustainable charging infrastructure, and charger manufacturers do not want to invest in expansion, as there is not enough user-traffic at their existing stations. He felt that building a charging network is vital, and that is what the government and private companies should focus on. Many potential customers cite range anxiety—the fear of running out of charge—as the reason they are apprehensive about buying an EV, Sarthak elucidated. Long-distance travellers also face problems due to the lack of reliable charging infrastructure on highways.
The Valerio Electric team is currently developing their application and pursuing automobile companies, partners, and charging operators to tailor the application to their requirements. Once they have a robust product, they plan to pursue tie-ups with all major charging operators. They are also reaching out to potential customers. Although the ongoing pandemic has slowed their progress, they anticipate that the application will be ready for beta testing by August 2020, and a full-scale launch is expected by the end of this year.
Their long-term goal of setting up a solar-powered charging infrastructure, Sarthak explained, will be achievable only after they get some initial traction in the market through their mobile application, as this ambitious goal is a capital-intensive business. Another problem that he mentioned is that India currently does not manufacture solar cells at scale, and this is something that they want to change. This goal will help with their overall motive: to create an eco-friendly and sustainable charging infrastructure, and to permanently replace existing infrastructure that derives the majority of its power from thermal power generation.
Sarthak expects that once EVs become popular in the market, the number of businesses that provide charging services will increase. This will make an aggregator application a necessity, and this is the niche that Sarthak intends to capture, fill, and capitalize on with Valerio Electric.