SUN Mobility HEV Business Showcases the World's First Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution with the Tata Starbus EV Platform at Prawaas 5.0

SUN Mobility, a global leader in energy infrastructure and battery-swapping solutions for electric vehicles, showcased the world’s first Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution under its Heavy Electric Vehicles (HEV) business with the Tata Starbus 12m EV platform on 9 July 2026 at Prawaas 5.0, India’s largest bus and mobility exhibition, held at the Helipad Exhibition Centre, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, aiming to decarbonize India’s USD 12 billion commercial bus market at scale.

SUN Mobility showcases the World’s First Modular Multi-Battery Swapping Technology for Heavy Electric Mobility at Prawaas 5.0, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

This breakthrough solution was inaugurated by Mr. Amrendra Singh Kishore (IOFS), Director, Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India, in the presence of Anand S, Vice President and Business Head, Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles; TV Srinivas, Head, Product Planning, Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles; Chetan Maini, Co-founder and Chairman, SUN Mobility, and Ashok Agarwal, CEO, SUN Mobility – HEV Business. The event being held from 9th to 11th July at Gandhinagar, Gujarat, comprises of prominent bus and car operators, vehicle OEMs and policymakers.

SUN Mobility Heavy Electric Vehicles (HEV) has developed a modular multi-battery swapping solution for commercial vehicles, designed to address the key barriers to fleet electrification, including high upfront vehicle costs, charging downtime, operational inefficiencies and limited scalability.

India’s electric bus market sits at an inflection point. Previous policy mandate like FAME II and the current PM E-Drive and state-level procurement targets are converging to accelerate adoption. As fleet operators look to electrify harder-to-abate segments such as staff transport, city transit, and intercity corridors, battery swapping is emerging as a valuable addition to the electrification toolkit. By enabling rapid energy replenishment, reducing vehicle downtime, and lowering the cost of electrification, it offers an economically viable solution for both low- and high-utilization operations while maximizing fleet uptime and operational efficiency. It also aims to decarbonize India’s commercial bus market at scale, which currently stands at USD 12 billion, according to a CEEW study published in 2025.

Speaking on this announcement, Chetan Maini, Co-Founder and Chairman, SUN Mobility, said, “When we founded SUN Mobility, our vision was to make electric mobility as convenient, scalable, and economically viable as conventional transport by reimagining energy infrastructure. The unveiling of the world’s first Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution demonstrated with Tata Starbus EV at Prawaas 5.0 marks a defining milestone in that journey. We believe the modular multi-battery swapping solution has the potential to unlock large-scale electrification across the commercial vehicle ecosystem by delivering a cost-effective and operationally efficient energy solution for diverse applications. As India accelerates its transition to clean mobility, technologies designed and built here can not only transform commercial transportation at home but also position India as a global leader in next-generation electric mobility solutions.”

Ashok Agarwal, CEO, SUN Mobility HEV, said, “The next phase of electrification will not be defined solely by vehicles, but by the energy ecosystems that power them. Our showcase of World’s first Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution on the Tata Starbus EV platform demonstrates how one battery swapping platform can serve staff, city transit, and intercity fleets alike, without compromising on affordability or operational reliability. We see this as a real step towards mass adoption of EVs in commercial transportation.”

Inside the World’s First Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Smart Bus

At the centre of the showcase is SUN Mobility HEV’s AIS-038 certified Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution, integrated into the Tata Starbus EV platform. The Modular Multi-Battery Swappable architecture allows two batteries to be swapped at once, with the full process completed in under five minutes, cutting turnaround time and giving operators a meaningful gain in uptime and flexibility.

The same modular design supports both 100 kWh and 50 kWh battery configurations and works across vehicle segments ranging from 3T to 55T GVW. A single underlying architecture serves multiple use-cases with the flexibility to the end users to choose the battery pack as per their operational requirements.

Under SUN Mobility HEV’s Battery-as-a Service (BaaS) approach, the battery is decoupled from the vehicle, so operators pay for energy consumed rather than the upfront cost of a battery pack. This shifts the burden of battery replacement, performance, and obsolescence from the customer to the swap operator, lowering the risk of switching to electric while bringing financing solutions at par with ICE vehicles.

One Platform, Built to Scale Across Every Application

As the battery, vehicle, and swap station architecture is common across staff, city transit, and intercity use cases, fleet operators and city administrators can expand deployment without re-engineering the underlying system, a key differentiator for scaling commercial EV operations.

Every Swappable EV runs as a connected node on SUN Mobility HEV’s intelligent network, sending back battery health, location, driver behaviour, energy use, and predictive maintenance alerts, with Over-the-Air update capability built in. Underpinning this is SUN Mobility HEV’s proprietary Digital Twin platform, a live virtual replica of every battery pack, and swap event that enables predictive degradation modelling, remote fault diagnosis, optimized swap scheduling, and carbon accounting at the level of a single vehicle.

Made in India, Built for the World

The Modular Multi-Battery Swappable Solution marks a significant moment for India’s commercial EV ecosystem, underscoring the growing importance of indigenous, OEM-agnostic energy infrastructure. Beyond enabling zero tailpipe emissions, the platform reflects wider national priorities of energy resilience and globally competitive mobility technology.

Built on more than 275+ patents developed entirely in-house, the technology embodies SUN Mobility HEV’s ambition to build solutions made in India, built for the world.

Backed by SUN Mobility’s credibility and building on proven success in electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and small commercial vehicles, SUN Mobility Heavy Electric Vehicles (HEV) extends this technology to buses and trucks. Its integrated ecosystem combines modular smart batteries, high-throughput Quick Interchange Stations (QIS), and the cloud-based Smart Network to enable buses and trucks to replenish energy in minutes: eliminating charging downtime, reducing range anxiety, and improving fleet productivity. The platform supports buses from 7 to 13.5 metres and trucks from 3T to 55T GVW, allowing operators to deploy multi-OEM fleets on a common energy infrastructure. By removing battery ownership from the vehicle purchase, SUN Mobility lowers acquisition costs, improves financing viability, and eliminates concerns around battery replacement and technology obsolescence.

About SUN Mobility

SUN Mobility is a global pioneer in battery swapping technology, offering faster, more affordable, and highly convenient energy solutions that accelerate electric vehicle adoption and support the transition to a zero-emission future. Founded in 2017 by Chetan Maini (Maini Group) and Uday Khemka (SUN Group), trailblazers in electric mobility and clean energy, SUN Mobility has emerged as India’s foremost provider of open architecture battery swapping solutions. Beyond India, it has strengthen its global presence especially in Africa, Southeast Asia including the Philippines.

Backed by marquee investors including Bosch (a global leader in automotive technology), Vitol (Africa’s leading energy trader and parent of Vivo Energy), Helios Climate (Africa’s premier climate-focused investment platform) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), the company enables seamless energy refuelling for electric two-, three-, and four-wheelers, as well as heavy electric vehicles (HEVs), through its innovative Swap Point™ infrastructure.

To accelerate nationwide deployment, SUN Mobility has formed IndoFast Swap Energy, a 50:50 joint venture with IOCL, aimed at scaling India’s battery swapping network at speed and scale. SUN Mobility has deployed 1900+ Swap Points™ across 23+ cities, powering over 70 million battery swaps and enabling 465+ million electric kilometers to date. Its technology has already helped eliminate more than 100,000 Metric Tonnes of CO₂ emissions, underscoring its mission to power clean, accessible mobility at scale.