Charging Station

Yuma Energy | Developing a network that is accessible, affordable and customer-centric

By Deepak Nanwani | TEST Jan 8, 2025

The e-mobility ecosystem in India is rapidly evolving across commercial and personal mobility space. The sector has seen millions of dollars worth of investment over the last 2-3 years, both from the existing well-established automotive giants and the fast-upcoming startups. However, to sustain this hypergrowth, the sector will need to overcome two fundamental challenges:

  1. Lowering the upfront cost of the electric vehicle, i.e., converting upfront Capex to recurring Opex, similar to an ICE vehicle where fuel consumption is the recurring Opex. This will reduce the upfront buying cost of buying an EV.
  2. Reducing vehicle downtime is necessary to drive up utilization. The higher the utilization, the higher the savings per kilometer. This is particularly relevant for the commercial mobility segment, which is a key driver for electric mobility adoption.

Battery swapping is a credible solution to drive EV adoption

Lower downtime can be achieved through faster charging batteries. However, the fast-charging technology remains expensive and unaffordable for many use cases. Additionally, it needs dedicated parking spaces for charging and, in some cases, even proprietary chargers – both of which come with their unique challenges.

 

This is where ‘Battery Swapping’ comes into the picture. It helps reduce the upfront cost of the vehicle (thereby driving adoption). Also, since swapping a removable battery is faster than charging a fixed battery in a vehicle, this helps address the downtime issue and improves utilization.

 

Key considerations while setting up a battery swapping network

For a BaaS player to be successful, here are two key considerations: The first is accurate network planning in line with rapidly growing and evolving demand density. The second is the upfront capital outlay required to create a dense network and the accompanying network utilization needed to recover the upfront investment.

 

How is Yuma Energy solving the Network Problem?

At Yuma Energy, we have continuously evolved our BaaS network expansion strategy to ensure we solve the variables mentioned above. Our expansion operations are driven by ML models that track and predict current and future customer demand. We also put in continuous effort to speak to our customers and get their feedback on battery availability throughout the network. Having Yulu as a partner and customer helps us address the network utilization problem early in our swap station’s lifecycle. This allows us to scale fast by creating a virtuous flywheel for our network expansion.

I am proud to say that Yuma Energy today has the capacity to deliver close to a million battery swaps a month and already serves over 125,000 customers every month. The impact on commercial use cases is even more profound, where Yuma Energy powers 4 ‘clean deliveries’ every second across Q-commerce and food delivery platforms.

 

The 3 Pillars for Yuma’s Network Strategy: The ACE framework

At the center of our expansion strategy are our three core philosophies – what we internally refer to as the ‘ACE’ framework.

First Pillar: Accessibility, the key to driving adoption.

One does not think twice before taking an ICE-based vehicle on a long road trip because fuel stations exist every few kilometers; therefore, there’s no range anxiety.

A dense network with consistent battery availability addresses range anxiety, which is the key to rapid EV adoption. It is also critical since swappable batteries are often of lower capacity than fixed batteries (owing to weight limitations for swapping).

In the areas we operate, customers can find a Yuma swap station every 3-4 km with 99.8%+ battery fulfilment. This assurance of battery availability is the reason why consumers place their trust in us.

Second Pillar: Customer Experience

Most users of swappable battery technology use their vehicles for commercial mobility (higher utilization and hence higher savings).

At Yuma, customers can pre-book tokens before they arrive at a swap station. Waiting time to get a battery is < 30 seconds on average and the average time to swap is also under 30 seconds, thus ensuring minimal downtime.

The battery swapping industry, in its nascent stage, should have an assisted model for swapping–ensuring that even first-time users get the required help to get comfortable with battery swapping as a concept.

This is also critical for the ecosystem from a battery handling and safety perspective. While the future will gradually transition to 100% ‘DIY battery swapping’ tech for the more experienced consumers, assisted battery swapping will ensure new customers have an anxiety-free onboarding onto the network.

Third Pillar: Unit Economics

The last and the most critical pillar of our network-building strategy is the unit economics for the swap.

At Yuma, the unit economics of a delivered battery swap is a sacrosanct metric the team is razor-focused on. We use smart algorithms and tech interventions to optimize our costs across logistics and staffing while working closely with policymakers to leverage support from multiple govt. agencies to bring down the cost of the swap for the consumer. The underlying strong unit economics means we continue to be on a strong trajectory for expansion while investing in automation/product interventions to improve the consumer experience.

Way forward

The business of energy vending (either for direct charging or through battery swapping) needs a significant amount of capital expenditure and operational expertise. As the network scales up, we are seeing plenty of interest from OEMs to partner with us and get their mobility solutions to consumers without the upfront cost for the battery.

Over the next few quarters, we will see the evolution of multiple forms of ‘franchisee’ models with varied levels of asset ownership and operational structures that will shape this industry for the better. This will help share the ‘burden’ of capex investment, aiding the rapid network expansion and helping create sustainable entrepreneurs.

The strength of a BaaS partner’s network will determine the pace of sales growth for OEMs opting for battery-swapping tech for their products. This will also be a key input to the success of players in the last mile logistics space who need to move to an EV fleet amidst the pressure to improve unit economics and a push from the policymakers to move to clean mobility.

At Yuma, we are committed to building a network that is available, affordable, and accessible for our end customers and OEM partners. The strong foundations of network setup and scale-up at Yuma give me confidence about being on the right track.

If you would like to know more about our swap stations or would like to partner with us, please write to us at partnerships@yuma.energy