Like an IC engine automobile where the engine and the driveline make up the key aggregates, in EVs the key aggregates are the battery and the motor. While an IC engine may account for 23 to 30 percent of the total cost and the driveline component such as a gearbox, propeller shaft, transaxle or a differential may together cost another 15 to 20 percent of the total vehicle cost, in the case of an EV, it may not be that simple. 

It is therefore necessary to find out about the battery and motor replacement cost before buying an EV. A young Canadian owner – Kyle Hsu – of Hyundai Ioniq 5 was thrown out of his seat almost when he found out that the warranty was void on the battery pack of his one-year-old electric vehicle and it would cost him a little over $ 60,000 to replace it! The car was bought in 2022 for $ 56,000. 

Hsu was driving to the interior of British Columbia, according to the YouTube channel Motormouth which has highlighted the development, when he avoided something on the road. On the cautionary side, he dropped at the dealer to get the car checked after he returned from the trip. 

The battery cover underneath the e-car was founded to have been scratched. The dealer conveyed that the battery behind the cover had been impacted and should be replaced since it may explode. It was not repairable. 

Hsu took the help of the insurance company once he was told that it would cost over $ 60,000 to replace the battery. The insurance company told him that his vehicle IDV was less than the cost of replacing the battery. If he were to choose to replace the battery, the insurance costs were likely to go up by 50 percent despite his clean driving record. 

Responding to Motormouth, the Hyundai Canada PR Manager Jennifer Mcarthy is known to have said that it amounts to a very rare situation and Hyundai Canada’s customer experience team should have had the opportunity to access the situation prior to sharing of costing. 

The cost of battery replacement depends on the nature of the damage, type of battery and repairs required. There is no one set price for ever replacement while battery cost is a challenge for the business. Pricing strategy for batteries that is reasonable, fair and in line with market competitiveness is being worked on, Mcarthy is known to have expressed further.

In his column in The Guardian newspaper recently, actor and automobile enthusiast Rowan Atkinson stated that he loves electric vehicles and was an early adopter. He however felt increasingly duped. 

An electrical and electronic engineer by education, Atkinson is of the opinion that electric motoring does not seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be. 

Stating that electric cars have zero exhaust emissions, which is a welcome development, particularly in respect of the air quality in city centres, Atkinson said in his column, if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car’s manufacture, the situation is very different. “The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: They’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years,” he averred. 

Drawing attention to solid-state battery development, Atkinson expressed that if hydrogen wins the race to power trucks and as a result every filling station stocks it, it could be popular and accessible choice for cars. 

Till then, keeping the old petrol vehicle may be better than buying an EV since it costs far less to make and can last for 30 years with tender loving care. 

If the majority of the first owners would retain their vehicles for over five years, it would result in an amount of CO2 reduction brought about by new cars being put on the road. The entire chain of raw material selection to manufacture, to the end of the road has its share of carbon emissions. 

Though it may be better to reduce our reliance of IC engine vehicles, it would be worth considering that the existing vehicles have already paid their environmental dues – cost to the environment – during their manufacturing process. A lot of technological development has also made them far less polluting and reliable than they were a few years or decades ago. 

Also, the possibility of writing off a one-year-old EV because its battery replacement cost exceeds the vehicle purchase cost is countered by the engine, gearbox or a body part being repairable in case of an IC engine vehicle.

Many of you would also remember the head honchos of some auto companies in India saying that BS VI emission compliant vehicles will only emit water through the tailpipe and will be cleaner than the ambient air. 

The time is ripe to understand what is ‘actually’ environment friendly, an EV or an IC vehicle. The time is right to test and analyse if it the automobiles that are causing more pollution in Indian cities or there are other sources. An air filled with so much dust does not seem like the handiwork of automobiles rather than the gigantic civil projects that being worked on. 

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Nawgati has announced the launch of Aaveg Pro, an integrated operations platform for petroleum dealers, at the Petrol Dealers Association Pune (PDAP) Annual General Meeting. The system is designed to digitise fuel station management within the Indian retail ecosystem.

Aaveg Pro serves as a digital operating system to replace manual workflows in fuel retail. The platform consolidates several critical station functions into a single interface:

• Sales and Inventory: Features include shift-level nozzle reconciliation, live inventory tracking and stock variation control.
• Financial Accounting: The system supports VAT, GST, cess and surcharge handling to maintain audit-ready records and real-time balance sheet visibility.
• Fleet and Credit Management: Dealers can manage digital fleet contracts, consolidated invoicing and credit risk monitoring.

The platform is designed to integrate with existing station infrastructure, such as dispensers, CCTV systems, fuel storage compressors and vehicle-tracking systems, to provide operational oversight.

Vaibhav Kaushik, Co-Founder & CEO, Nawgati, said, “The launch of Aaveg Pro reflects our continued commitment to building solutions that solve real operational challenges for fuel dealers. Fuel retail in India still relies heavily on fragmented and manual workflows across accounting, stock monitoring, reconciliation, and customer credit management. With Aaveg Pro, we are bringing these critical functions onto one integrated platform so that dealers can operate with greater visibility, control, and efficiency.”

Aalaap Nair, Co-Founder, Nawgati, said, “Aaveg Pro has been built specifically for the day-to-day realities of fuel retail operations in India. From shift-level reconciliation and stock tracking to consolidated fleet invoicing and live financial reporting, the platform is designed to reduce complexity and improve decision-making at the station level. Our goal is to help dealers move away from manual processes and adopt a smarter, more scalable way of running their businesses.”

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Charge_iN by Mahindra and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) have signed a strategic agreement to develop electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure at HPCL retail outlets across India. The collaboration aims to utilise HPCL’s national fuel station network to increase the availability of public charging points for electric four-wheelers.

HPCL currently operates over 24,400 retail outlets and has installed more than 5,400 charging stations under its HP e-Charge brand. The new stations established through this partnership will exclusively feature 180 kW dual gun chargers, designed for high-speed charging.

The deployment is intended to support the transition to green transportation in India, currently the third-largest automotive market globally. The agreement focuses on building an ultrafast charging network to improve reliability and reduce charging times for EV users.

The partnership aligns with the government's objective of strengthening public EV infrastructure. By integrating chargers into existing fuel stations, the companies aim to provide a platform for nationwide expansion and seamless access for drivers.

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Electric mobility startup Bijliride has detailed plans to expand its franchise network to more than 25 Indian cities. Operating under a Franchise Owned–Franchise Operated (FOFO) model, the company aims to onboard 30 franchise partners by March 2027 and scale its fleet to between 10,000 and 15,000 electric two-wheelers within the next 18 months.

The expansion the startup claims is projected to drive 150 percent growth in fleet operations. Bijliride has identified several urban mobility markets for this phase, including:

• Tier 1 Cities: Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata.
• Emerging Hubs: Hyderabad clusters, Jaipur, Patna, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, and Kochi.
• Logistics Centres: Nagpur, Indore, Surat, and Visakhapatnam.

The strategy targets demand from logistics operators, gig economy platforms and urban commuters.

Under the FOFO structure, local partners own and manage the fleets while Bijliride provides the technology infrastructure. This includes real-time vehicle tracking, battery management protocols, and rental management systems.

The partners have to commit to a minimum of 50 electric two-wheelers to begin with, an initial investment of around INR 1.4-1.6 million, with a projected breakeven in approximately 15 months under stable fleet utilisation. The startup also assists partners with driver onboarding and connects fleets with demand from local delivery businesses and gig platforms.

Shivam Sisodiya, CEO and Co-Founder, Bijliride, said, “Electric mobility demand in India is growing rapidly, particularly among gig workers and last-mile delivery operators. At this stage, our focus is disciplined scale. The FOFO model allows us to grow responsibly by partnering with local entrepreneurs who understand their markets while leveraging our technology platform and operational systems. This structure enables us to expand faster while ensuring fleets are managed efficiently on the ground.”

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It’s been sometime that Donut Lab has been working on producing a battery that will address the challenging needs of EVs better than other batteries have been able to do. Claiming to be the world’s first solid-state battery ready for production vehicles measured in independent testing conditions, the company has released its third test result that dispels any suspicions that the battery would be a supercapacitor rather than a battery.
The results measure the properties of its solid-state battery, evaluating its ability to retain charge when not in use. Available for download on its site, the third and most recent test follows two other tests that looked at charging speed (the test was conducted by Technology Re) using two passive cooling configurations and evaluation of capacity performance of the battery cell in hot conditions (by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland). 
The test measuring the battery’s ability to retain charge even when not in use was carried out using a simple research setup. It was connected at room temperature to the research laboratory’s battery tester, which repeatedly measured the cell voltage every 10 seconds. Like the previous test that measured battery performance at very high temperatures, this test also began with a 1C capacity test, demonstrating that the cell was precisely the same as the other test examples.
 
After the capacity test, the battery cell was charged to approximately 50 percent charge and left connected to the battery tester for ten days. The cell was then discharged to measure the remaining energy capacity. The results show that the battery cell voltage stabilises during the first 10 hours after charging. Over the next nine or so days, the voltage curve continues to stabilise. A capacity test at the end of the test period confirmed that the voltage drop corresponds to the amount of energy in watt-hours.
The Donut Battery behaved in the test exactly as a battery should. If the test had been performed with a supercapacitor, the charge would have fallen linearly much faster during the same time period.
“Since we unveiled the Donut Battery, there has been a lot of speculation and theories about whether it is a supercapacitor. In all its simplicity, this test proves that it is a battery. Supercapacitors charge and discharge quickly, but they also lose their charge quickly when not in use. The Donut Battery behaves like a battery and can maintain a charge for significantly longer,” confirmed Ville Piippo, CTO, Donut Lab.
After the third test mentioned above, Donut Lab has carried out a special test to measure battery performance in a battery pack using the Verge TS Pro motorcycle that charges in less than ten minutes, making it the world's fastest-charging electric motorcycle.
 

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