India’s electric vehicle sales recently hit an all-time high, with a year-on-year growth rate of 41 per cent. As the industry looks to mature, battery-swapping startups such as Battery Smart, Sun Mobility, and Yuma Energy seem to have found fertile ground.
Back in 2022, the Centre, through NITI Aayog, formally recognised battery-swapping technology. Fast forward to 2026, and India now has at least 98 battery-swapping firms.
Battery swapping is an EV technology that allows users to replace a depleted battery with a fully charged one.
The BaaS (Battery-as-a-Service) business model is slowly gaining traction, as it lowers upfront battery costs at the time of vehicle purchase and allows users to rent batteries while paying a regular subscription fee to service providers.
Last week, Delhi-based Battery Smart raised ₹1.5 crore in debt funding from Mirova, an asset management company. Founded in June 2020, the startup has now expanded to more than 1,600 stations across 50 cities in India.
With high infrastructure costs, the BaaS business is considered high-risk and requires time to turn profitable. However, as with Battery Smart, the current startups are focusing on business expansion to drive future profitability.
“With Mirova’s support, we aim to accelerate the network expansion and further our focus on making electric mobility more accessible, affordable and inclusive for drivers across the country,” said Pulkit Khurana, Founder and CEO of Battery Smart.
After reporting strong network growth in FY2026, Indofast Energy, a battery-swapping network, is also focusing on expansion into tier 2 and tier 3 cities. The company has over 1,600 stations across 23 cities and has entered into agreements with 32 original equipment manufacturers.
With most of these firms focusing on swapping for two-wheelers (2Ws) and three-wheelers (3Ws), they also claim that they help gig workers save time and money.
Mentioning that they found a niche customer segment, Yuma Energy, a joint battery-swapping venture between automotive supplier Magna International and E2W platform Yulu Energy, said that the technology helps delivery partners who depend on EVs.
To reduce fuel costs, gig workers have been switching to EVs, which are cheaper to charge. While petrol costs for a two-wheeler range from ₹1 to ₹3 per kilometre, EV charging takes roughly ₹1 to ₹1.5 per kilometre. However, regular charging takes time, which is crucial in the gig economy. Battery swapping solves this problem while still remaining cheaper than petrol, roughly starting at ₹1.24 per km for 2Ws. Battery life also improves because it replaces fast, high-voltage charging with slower, controlled charging.
For regular consumers, however, home charging remains cheaper, making the business heavily dependent on high-volume commercial vehicles.