Chetan Maini, Co-Founder and Chairman, Sun Mobility

Bengaluru-based battery swapping company Sun Mobility is making its biggest push yet into India’s commercial electric vehicle market with the launch of what it describes as the world’s first modular battery swapping platform for electric trucks and buses across the 3-tonne to 55-tonne segment. The company is planning to showcase the product which has been developed and demonstrated with the Tata Motors’ Starbus 12m EV.

The platform marks the company’s entry into the heavy commercial vehicle market after establishing its battery swapping technology in two- and three-wheelers. It will make its public debut at Pravaas 5.0 in Gandhinagar from July 9 to 11.

If adopted by multiple manufacturers, the OEM-agnostic battery architecture could create a common energy infrastructure for commercial electric vehicles, replacing proprietary battery ecosystems with a shared swapping network.

“We are not accelerating the transition to electric mobility. We are eliminating the barriers that slowed it down with the world’s first modular multi-battery swapping technology,” said Chetan Maini, Co-Founder and Chairman of Sun Mobility, ahead of the launch.

Platform strategy

The platform which will be owned and run by the company Heavy electric Vehicles division (HEV) received AIS-038 certification from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) in March, becoming the first indigenously developed high-voltage swappable battery platform for trucks and buses to secure this approval. The certification validates its thermal, electrical and mechanical safety standards, clearing a key regulatory milestone for commercial deployment.

Designed for vehicles ranging from 3-tonne light commercial vehicles to 55-tonne multi-axle tractor-trailers and intercity buses, the platform supports both 330-volt and 660-volt electrical architectures. It uses modular 50 kWh and 100 kWh battery packs that can be automatically swapped in under three minutes.

Solving the economics

Sun Mobility is targeting one of the biggest hurdles to commercial vehicle electrification: battery economics. Electric buses and trucks typically use fixed battery packs of 200-400 kWh, increasing vehicle acquisition costs while reducing payload because of battery weight. Charging these vehicles can take between 90 minutes and four hours, lowering fleet utilisation for operators whose revenues depend on keeping vehicles on the road.

The opportunity is significant because private operators own nearly 90 per cent of India’s commercial buses and trucks, making operating economics and vehicle uptime critical to EV adoption.

Battery-as-a-Service

Sun Mobility’s Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) model separates battery ownership from the vehicle. Fleet operators purchase the vehicle while paying only for the energy consumed. According to the company, the model reduces the upfront acquisition cost of an electric bus or truck by about 40 per cent, bringing prices closer to comparable diesel and CNG vehicles. Operators can also optimise payload by carrying only the battery modules required for a particular route instead of oversized fixed battery packs.

Commercial deployment will be led by Sun Mobilty HEV Disvion which will establish automated battery swapping stations and the swapping technology. The initial rollout will focus on high-density freight corridors and intercity bus routes, allowing operators to swap batteries at highway locations instead of investing in dedicated charging depots.

Global playbook

Sun Mobility’s strategy mirrors a battery swapping model that has gained significant traction in China, now the world’s largest market for electric commercial vehicles.

About half of all electric trucks sold in China are equipped with battery swapping capability, while swap-enabled models account for around 30 per cent of electric heavy-duty truck sales.

In the first half of 2025 alone, China sold more than 25,400 swap-capable commercial vehicles, up 134 per cent year-on-year. Fleet operators using swappable cement mixers, dump trucks and other heavy vehicles have reported operating cost savings of 10-26 per cent compared with diesel alternatives.

The model has gained the strongest traction in closed-loop operations such as ports, mining sites, steel plants, logistics parks and municipal fleets, where vehicles operate on predictable routes and downtime directly affects earnings.

In China’s manufacturing hub, Tangshan alone has deployed more than 4,400 battery-swapping heavy trucks, a fleet larger than the global population of hydrogen fuel-cell heavy trucks.

India, by contrast, has so far limited battery swapping largely to electric two- and three-wheelers. Extending the model to trucks and buses will require significantly higher investment in automated swapping stations, greater standardisation across vehicle manufacturers and sufficient fleet density on freight corridors to make the infrastructure economically viable.

Building the ecosystem

The heavy commercial vehicle platform builds on earlier battery swapping pilots on city buses in Ahmedabad and intercity buses developed with Bengaluru-based bus manufacturer Veera Vahana. Those programmes validated automated swapping of high-voltage battery modules under Indian operating conditions and formed the engineering base for commercial deployment.

Alongside the rollout, Sun Mobility has initiated a fresh capital raise for its heavy commercial vehicle business while expanding its intellectual property portfolio. The company has filed more than 160 patents, with over 40 granted, covering technologies including high-voltage connectors, robotic alignment systems and automated battery locking mechanisms.

China’s experience suggests battery swapping becomes commercially viable only after vehicle manufacturers, infrastructure providers and fleet operators converge on common standards and high-utilisation routes. Sun Mobility is betting that India is approaching that inflection point, even though the country’s swapping ecosystem remains largely confined to two- and three-wheelers.

Published on July 8, 2026