The Business Of Indian Ev Infrastructure

Maybe tomorrow one of your OEM comes and tells you know we have enough technology in house to build our own chargers. So do you see that as a risk?

See I think that’s a risk always for like any industry where you can have backward integration right so one they’ll see we are experts in this we understand this very well we are innovating faster. The second thing is that because as a supplier or a partner to them, we’ll have economies of scale because we’re supplying these not only to them, we’re also supplying this to like 10 other EV manufacturers. Vertical integration is very important initially on right because these are like you rightly said from a technology point of view still very new. If you look at it, we’re actually a power surplus country officially. uh the amount of power we generate is enough to meet our needs right now. Let’s say even a typical residential distribution transformer which is serving 20 flats let’s say 20 or 30 flats in Bangalore. So typically these transformers will be rated anywhere between 100 KVA to 250 KVA. So during the day you’ll not have any issue but then now everybody comes back in the evening and everybody puts their ACs, chargers, everything right happens at the same time. So like the peak happens all at once. Today we have with us Zora Khan who’s the CEO of IPC India. So IPC is into they build basically EV chargers for home and public charging uh stations for various OEMs. Basically uh they also build software that helps manage and monitor charging. So this is about IPC India. We’ll now go on to deeper questions for Zora herself to answer. We would love to know about your journey about the IPC India. Hey guys. So first of all, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. Um I will first introduce IPC. I would say IPC is a power electronics company. Uh we design and manufacture EV chargers for the Indian market. These include home and portable chargers. Um we also do public charging infrastructure which has not just the hardware of charging but it also has a complete monitoring software as well as a mobile app. We supply to the leading two-wheeler and three-wheeler EV OEMs in India and now we are diversifying into the four-wheeler and the bus market as well. What makes us different is our roots. Um I’m a third generation entrepreneur from the Maher group and which has been building power quality systems and power electronic components for more than 45 years in India. Uh which means we understand the unique grid conditions here better than most of I mean most of the companies and most of our competitors. So I actually spent the first six years of my career working at Mahair uh developing and building products uh for power quality. Post that is when we decided to start IPC. This was back in 2017. Um so that’s when the entrepreneurial journey began and we wanted to focus on e-mobility because that’s where we saw a very large opportunity and it’s a very important subject um also for India from an energy security perspective from an environmental perspective and so there were a lot of things coming together and that’s why we decided to start this company IPC to focus on power electronics for mobility. That being said this is just the starting point. there’s a long way to go. Mobility is just our first focus and of course we’ll be looking at other areas like uh you know energy storage also power management for different industrial applications. So this is just the beginning. So regarding the product side right so we’ll start off from the product uh end of your uh company. So you supply charges to various OEMs. Uh for example maybe Ather Bajage right? Uh how do these chargers exactly differ from each other? So are there different requirements for each uh chargers or how do they differ basically? So so honestly they have a lot more in common than people think. Um at the hardware level what you’re doing is you’re fundamentally moving energy from an AC power grid you’re converting it into DC and then you are charging a battery. So that’s essentially what you’re doing right. So the main power electronics which is at the core which mainly is a rectifier. Um then you also have multiple conversion stages and also protection circuits which are required to protect these electronics. Right? So this is largely the same across all OEMs. So whether it’s an AA or an Ola or let’s say a Bajage or any of these um OEMs the basic hardware remains common because the function is is the same. Um where it actually differs is on the software protocols. So the language that each let’s say battery management system uh on a vehicle speaks is is very different. Um so that’s why we need to actually customize uh the softwares. We need to integrate this very tightly with each OEM’s battery management system which enables the charger to talk to these vehicles. Right? The other thing which is different is the the actual connectors which is the physical interface uh which connects a charger to the vehicle. So this also has been largely different. If you look at four-wheelers, it has been standardized. But uh India mainly if you look at two wheeler, three-wheelers, everybody has been on a different connector platform. So it’s largely the connector that has to be different. The complete software and firmware that has to be uh different and of course power levels will be different because certain models of vehicles will have higher or larger battery packs and for to charge them faster you need to increase the power level. So we do a complete platform. So so essentially how we build products is it’s from a range of even 350 watt to 3,300 W. Right? So this is a wide range of products that exists but we’ve built platforms where the hardware essentially stays the same and you’re just tweaking it out but the software layer and the hardware interfaces and some of the features are what same. Um so I’d say that’s where the main differentiator is and um that’s also why companies like ours like IPC can serve multiple different OEMs simultaneously because we’re not re-engineering everything from scratch. uh we are actually having a common platform which is being tweaked and maybe customized in certain ways and then you we’re building the final product for the end consumer who wants to buy an EV who wants to but isn’t sure of uh things like range things like how close is the next charger or if I go to a charging station will I be able to charge my particular vehicle uh what are those what do those bottlenecks look like for the end consumer so so right now If you if you look at the kind of bottlenecks that are there for end consumers, it’s that so actually there are two type of chargers. Let me put it this way, right? So one is a personal charger that you get when you buy a vehicle. Now this is a charger which is already tightly integrated with the OEM software with the hardware interface and this is something that you will use to charge your vehicle at home. So that is pretty straightforward. Um the power levels are also defined. Hence the charging times are also defined and then there are absolutely no bottlenecks when it comes to that. Um typically you can charge your vehicle overnight you know in three to four hours and and this is something that the users are also very familiar with because it’s very similar to charging your phone at home right so it’s very familiar for like to people um where the actual bottlenecks are coming up these days and if you ask me that’s on the public infrastructure side um so on the public infrastructure side there are quite a few bottlenecks because there are actual different I would say layers that need to tightly integrated for any user to have a seamless charging uh experience. Um so if you look at the the first one is the actual physical connector. Now let’s say I have an ether vehicle and I go to any public infrastructure. The first thing I need to see is if does this connector is it even compatible? Is the connector on my vehicle compatible with a connector on the charging station. Right? So this is one sort of distinct layer which could cause friction. Um so this is a actual physical uh layer. The second thing is a protocol or software layer. Now even if let’s say the connector matches but usually you need to also have software interoperability and and when I say software protocol I mean this is also what the the charger use uses to talk to the BMS on the charger. Right? So this also needs to be integrated. Um the the third I would say is the actual the power grid like the grid conditions and quality right and this is like a very under appreciated kind of topic which is because a charger that works let’s say very well in you know other areas like Germany or China might not work well here because those chargers have to work not only uh with the kind of voltage spikes with the kind of you know unique uh Indian harmonic issues that are there. Um they have to be reliable. They need to uh you know not only look at uh phase imbalances. They have to look at even working in harsh Indian conditions like the you know dust, rain, uh heat. So these are some of the challenges that any user might face where you know if they go to a particular place the charger itself might not be be working because of all these reasons right. So currently these are the three bottlenecks the way we see it. One is the actual hardware interface. Second is the uh actual software communication interface. Um and then third is of course the reliabilities of the charger them themselves. Like with mobile phones for a long time the debate was between type A, type B, type C, right? And obviously Europe eventually came to like a conclusion that oh type C is going to be the definitive standard. And of course other countries followed suit, right? How do charging charging networks communicate with each other? What are sort of the what what is the type-c sort of equivalent of communicate? Of course, with mobile phones, it’s a lot easier because you have Android, which is I mean you have different versions of Android, but you have like they’re still Android, right? They still have the same a similar core. What do what do those protocols look like when it comes to charging stations? Yeah. So again here there are two different uh types of charging um protocols. Um so first like I said is the actual hardware interface. So if you look at India um initially there was a lot of fragmentation uh when it came to what kind of connectors people were using and that is natural right because when an industry is still new OEMs and also are still trying to figure out what is the right approach to follow. So initially it was very fragmented and now slowly you can see standardization happening. I’ll just give you an example. So on the four-wheeler side there is a standard called CCS2 uh which is the combined charging standard. Now this has become mandated for India and all four-wheelers are coming on this CCS2 standard. Now two wheelers and three wheelers this is where again there’s still you know I would say in terms of standardization has sort of um you know been slightly slower compared to four-wheelers that’s it’s mainly because it is com I mean countries like India that are leading the two wheeler three-wheeler EV revolution and so a lot of people are looking at us to sort of define the way forward in terms of what the connectors will be what the protocols will be um and that’s exactly why initiative atives like the LECCS um and there’s also a consortium which IPC has recently launched as a founding member along with Aether Energy and Hero Vida it’s called the light electric vehicle acceleration forum so it’s called LEAF um and we are an active member there and the main objective is to bring in standardization for two-heer three-wheeler hardware and also software protocols um and this is an initiative that has just started. We launched this um just last month and we’re in the process of bringing on other ecosystem players because we know for standardization it cannot be done in isolation. You need you know you need EV OEMs, you need charger OEMs, you also need network operators, infrastructure players. So we’re trying to bring everybody together. Um so this is on the hardware side. Uh so similarly on the similarly on the software side uh there’s something called OCP which is the open charge point protocol um and this is again a standard communication protocol which exists between a charger and a backend cloud-based management software which we call as a CMS. Um so this is think of it like as a language that allows any charger to talk to any CMS regardless of the manufacturer. So it’s basically so even if I’m let’s say the charger is manufactured by X um the CMS has been developed by Y um so charger X can seamlessly I mean let’s say integrate with the CMS so similarly another manufacturer also ABC can seamlessly integrate with the same CMS right so this is OCP uh now OCP has 1.6 six version which is what is recent like now being used most predominantly but OCP has also now uh recently I think launched OCPP 2.1 uh this adds additional support for birectional charging um also vehicle to grid um smart charging um also has been included in this um so this is for any charger to talk to any CMS uh we also have protocols now for different CMSs also to talk to each other now. So it’s not only about vehicle to charger, charger to cloud, it’s also between different network should also be able to talk right and so for that you have something called OCPI which is the open charge point interface. So this is for network to network roaming. So essentially this is what currently exists as an overall I would say architecture um between vehicles between chargers between a backend cloud versus let’s say multiple different clouds. So yeah it requires a much larger ecosystem play. So if I’m not wrong uh so currently there’s this standardization of uh ports in with respect to four-wheelers right? So you mean to say the four-wheelers use uh the same software. The software will be same throughout the four-wheelers, right? In that sense, the communication software, yes, the communication language and the messages will be the same. So there’ll be like a sequence of messages. For example, there will be an authentication process and they have to talk the same language to the charger so the charger can understand it and then reply in this in a you know appropriate way otherwise charging won’t happen. Right. Right. So so that’s going to happen maybe in couple of years with two wheelers also. That’s what you mean to say you know with respect to all the leaf coming into place. Right. Yeah. So with leaf coming into play that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Um we’re trying to make this happen faster. Um if you see already Aether and Vita um they have a network which is interoperable. Um so other OEMs are also coming on board and these are conversations that are already happening because see everybody realizes that there is also a regulatory pressure coming right. So government policies are pushing this. BIS standards which is the main standardization body for India also has now recognized uh I mean LECS which is the type 7 connector. Um at the same time a lot of OEMs now are seeing the benefits of having a standardized network. um they don’t want to be left behind and whoever joins this first or standardizes this first these are the people who will shape how the standards are written for the future. Um and every OEM now knows that which side of the table they want to be on and this is what we are leading the effort along with Aether and Vita and honestly it has been quite encouraging. uh we thought we’d face a lot of resistance but OEMs have been quite welcoming and I think not just OEMs but different ecosystem players like charge point operators, infrastructure players, charging connector companies, charger companies are all coming together. So it’s actually great to see from like as an overall ecosystem when uh all of this is getting standardized, right? So there’ll be a lot of uh already manufactured products at your factory or maybe at the user end or maybe at the company level also you also might have products that are manufactured. So how are you planning to go about it? Because you are also a part of you know standardizing the product right. So are you carefully manufacturing products you know order basis or are you pre-manufacturing things for your OEMs? No. So a lot of this is done in collaboration with the OEMs, right? And and we know the direction in which the market is going u or where the technology is going or where even the standards are going. So we already know that and we’re already part of larger um I would say policy discussions, standardization, technical discussions. So we have a fair idea of where it is going. So everything that we’re doing whether we’re you know designing the charger or designing the connector or even manufacturing these we’re keeping that sort of long-term window um in mind um at the same time everything that we do we will make sure it’s also backward compatible. So even for OEMs if they’re going to upgrade to something they don’t want their older or their initial uh users to get into issues, right? So everything will be backward compatible. Um on hardware we might have to look at having adapters like how even normally for any of your electronic appliances you might have a adapter or a connector where the physical hardware interfaces don’t match. uh we might these connectors might so these adapters will be also there on the software side it could be on the hardware side so these are the things that will have to come up but I think what is clear is that the industry is still evolving uh it’s still evolving and there’s a lot of changes that are happening but everyone is conscious that the early users the early adopters um will also have access to these changes will not be left stranded uh in any way AI AI is taking over every product out there, every market. I want to know if the AI you are integrating AI into your product as well. Like also I want to know if like the technology over time it reduces the size of the product, right? Like for example back in the time the mobile was like really a big product and then became heavy to hold. Now it’s like really lightweight mobile phones. I know you know I want to know if the chargers are also you know getting upgraded smaller in size easy to take places because currently the two two wheeler chargers are a little bulky to carry with you so that you can take two places and maybe charge it there as well. Yeah, like like there’s a parallel I think lithium ion batteries would be a fair analogy to use, right? I think yeah, we recently did a story on BYD where we sort of try to get it to sort of how the blade battery sort of works and why like and the fact that they change something in the packaging. U so we’re wondering whether you you see a similar thing happening 5 years down the line, 10 years down the line. Yeah. So I think that’s already happening at least when it comes to charging that innovation that miniaturaturization is already happening as we speak. Um so there are of course technologies that are being used. There are wideband gap semiconductors for example silicon carbide gallium nitrite devices and using these devices and building let’s say chargers out of it will definitely help in terms of reducing the size and the footprint of chargers for the same power level. It will also improve efficiencies. Right? So these technologies already exist. We are also working on them. Um so this is one sort of innovation that’s happening in the industry where let’s say chargers will be getting more compact, more efficient. Um and the other thing that’s happening is of course power levels are increasing because battery packs range everything is increasing right people want more range and they want faster charging. So this won’t be possible unless you increase the power level also. So we’re also looking at higher power density you know architectures to see how we can pack more power in the same form factor. Um so these are the kind of differentiated products that we’re also working on. We’re looking at even birectional charging. Um to give you an idea it’s it’s a simple use case where let’s say I have a a charger which I’m currently using to charge my battery right but the battery is an energy storage device. So, I should also have the option to when I’m, let’s say, it’s fully charged or um when I’m not really using the vehicle and if I want to power a small load if I’m outside or uh whether it’s at home and we should be able to also use the the energy storage or the battery pack and then power let’s say a few devices. So, these are the different kind of products um that are being developed already. Um and I think um these are things that are rapidly evolving. So definitely there is innovation in terms of AI because you mentioned AI earlier also. Um there is a lot of work in terms of the actual uh on the cloud-based management software that I mentioned. Um there we are looking at uh different I mean building different algorithms to see how we can map out the kind of charges that are connected to a particular grid uh try to enable let’s say dynamic load management uh to make sure that the grids at that point are not stressed um at any stage. So there’s a lot of work happening both on the hardware innovation side, software innovation side um and all of this is you know getting integrated um also getting rolled out into the market in phases. So we had a couple of questions on grid as well. Uh now so you come from a legacy business of you know uh selling power electronics basically through Maher right Maher group. Uh so I want to know what does Indian discom actually look like to you? uh considering the crucial role that you’re playing right uh uh with respect to EV charging what does you know Indian discoms look like kind of I I’ll slightly reframe the question a little bit like with obviously with Mayor Group uh you’ve probably dealt with the Indian grid Indian discom um sold to them as well right what was the relationship back then like what are the relationship with say the Indian grid Indian discoms like when you were now expanding into the EV business so I think first the Indian grid itself I think is a great like engineering achievement. Um when you look at how it’s like catering to almost 1 billion plus people. Uh there’s like extreme like geographical diversity. There’s also massive lower variations right and it changes depending on the seasons. It changes depending on time of day. Um there’s a lot of investment also that has happened in terms of not just power generation but also transmission. and then the last mile. Um and I think that over a period of time um at a power generation and transmission level, India has like made significant pro progress. If you look at it, we’re actually a power surplus country officially. Uh the amount of power we generate is enough to meet our needs right now. Uh but I think what India has is is a distribution problem, right? And that’s where the discoms and a lot of these players do come in into the picture. Um it but this distribution which is mainly the 11 KV and the 415 W lines right that’s what actually connects the the grid to let’s say your neighborhood. Um right now a lot of these lines are overloaded. Um for example, transformers which are serving these residential areas um you know were probably installed of for requirements for maybe 10 years ago or a long time ago, right? So they are overloaded. They need to be upgraded. Um even for example in the air conditioning loads that are coming into effect right now will be causing a a strain on the grid let alone let’s say EV charging coming into the picture, right? and and this is where the actual challenge is. It’s to upgrade that distribution layer. And I think the generation transmission layer is fine in terms of the power grid. It’s more on the distribution side. Um the other thing that’s changing now is that grids are being forced to become birectional. Um also intelligent systems. For example, you’ll have to integrate solar. So there’s also rooftop solar. Um this is also being fed back into the grid. Um at the same time energy storage systems are getting integrated uh both at like utility level also at like homes. Um then you have EVs being charged. Um and these load profiles are completely different. You can’t really predict when people are going to charge. Um so it’s like a very dynamic load situation. So this entire uh monitoring of this requirement requires a lot of upgrade a lot of engineering work even let’s say on the discom uh because earlier discoms managed only like simple one-way flow they were like static loads uh but now they have to operate you know it’s a very complex um realtime energy marketplace and that’s what it’s slowly moving towards and then you we do have a lot of standards and protocols that are coming up now that are being written to enable this. Um but there’s still a long long way to go. Yeah. Uh so yeah as we were talking about you know how the power grid is actually built the the use case of 10 years ago considering all the equipments electronics being used currently uh even including the EVs right if my iteration is correct uh explanation is correct I think the singlephase and the three-phase is what actually make would make the difference right like the single phase would have less electricity whereas the three-phase would provide more electricity that’s a simple definition of single phase and three-phase right so considering all of the load increase do you think there is a need for maybe upgrade of the singlephase connection in the residential areas uh into three-phase also like who would uh bear the cost of maybe you know in case if for example my building wants to have like maybe two three EV cars in the place sure so I’ll first start off with the singlephase three-phase that question that you asked right so we’ll take it step by step so if you look at a a typical home right now you’ll have singlephase like residential connections in India. So these are typically limited to 5 kilowatt of sanctioned load. Uh sometimes you can go up to much higher. So let’s say single phase of 7.5 kowatt. Uh but that depends on the discom and the tariff category. So now normally if I look at from a charging perspective then the ideal sort of sweet spot for charging at home is a around a 3.3 kW charger. uh if you’re looking at even on a two wheeler, three wheel or four-wheeler and if let’s say the sanction load is available, you can even go up to a 7.4 kilowatt charger on singlephase. So this is possible from a singlephase uh infrastructure as well, right? And that’s why most of our home charging systems fall within let’s say our sub 3.3 kW and and for four-wheelers will be typically um either 3.3 or 7.4 4 kilowatt because this is what majority of the Indian homes can support today right and um but for example if a household or a house needs more power um because let’s say you have a a family that has multiple EVs wants to do overnight charging um the then you have to apply for a three-phase connection that’s something that has to be done through a discom uh you’ll need to apply for an upgrade a connection upgrade and this is something that the the then the discom will come they will assess the feeder they will say okay do you have capacity headroom and then this cost so there’s a cost also that comes right associated with this so depending on which state you are and which discom you fall under it can vary um this can go from anywhere um of course this varies but anywhere between let’s say even 10,000 rupees to 30,000 rupees um just for the connection the timeline is also variable um and at the same time this becomes this actually becomes the barrier for most people who live in homes but what I’m trying to say is that if you let’s say still stick to the singlephase 3.3 kW to 7.4 4 kilowatt uh which is where the industry is currently at um I think and if you do overnight charging at least from a home perspective because typically in a home use case you do have time right so I don’t need to increase power levels that much because the vehicle is going to be stationary for 5 to 6 hours at least right so there I can go with slow charging continue to be at a singlephase uh connection also charge the vehicle fully overnight and still be able to manage the let’s say any use cases that you have in terms of charging any topups can be done on a public infrastructure. Now public infrastructure doesn’t have all of these constraints. Of course, they’re also um if you’re talking about a CPO or even an infrastructure player, they will anyway be setting up, you know, fast charging, much higher capacity chargers. So, this can be 60 kilowatt, you know, 120 kilowatt, much faster uh charging station. So, any topups that are required can of course be done on a public infrastructure. the day-to-day requirements can easily be taken care of by a singlephase connection at home. Yeah, I actually had a question on uh transformers. Um so a few months ago on the daily brief we sort of did a story on transformers in particular at least a shortage in high voltage power transformers. How much of a bottleneck do you think because transformers are obviously installed like over long periods of time, right? very likely that the apartment building that maybe you or I live in uh was installed probably 20 years ago. It’s prone to blowouts when there are heavy loads. How much of a bottleneck do you think uh the state of transformers in Indian residences are? I think because of the kind of load profiles that we are going to be seeing in the future specifically because of EV charging now you know becoming predominant it is very important for the distribution transformers to be upgraded this is a very very important topic right and so if I look at let’s say even a typical residential distribution transformer which is serving 20 flats let’s say 20 or 30 flats in Bangalore so typically these transformers will be rated anywhere between 100 KVA to 250 KVA right and all this load usually if it comes to charging will happen maybe in the evening right so during the day you’ll have not you’ll not have any issue everything will be perfectly fine your transformer will not be overloaded things will be working smoothly but then now everybody comes back in the evening and everybody puts their ACs chargers everything right it happens at the same time so like the peak happens all at once so that’s the problem it’s this sort of imbalance load profile that exists. Um and what normally happens is that in the evening when this happens, right? Um usually the system will get overloaded and and when that happens and when the transformer is working in this overload territory, that’s when the thermal issues will start. So the transformer will run hotter, the insulation will age faster, then it’ll fail prematurely and that’s why you’ll have let’s say transformers failing, right? And then you’ll also see things that where the voltages which is at the further end of the feeder will suddenly drop uh and that will impact every device which is on the circuit. So now it’s not only on the transformers also other devices connected onto the circuit. So all of the so that’s why it’s a very important topic that I think one transformers have to be upgraded at the same time. uh dynamic load management that is that’s what I was saying from a software level uh where you have a CMS a cloud-based management system onto which multiple chargers are connected and this system knows what the available load is or the capacity is and based on that dynamically decides how much let’s say power to distribute um and and this is something that has to be done if we don’t want to be stressing our power grids. Understood. One question that I had on like because you’re effectively selling um equipment that needs to be plugged into a local discom for this, right? Every state has discoms and like from where we stand we see a lot of variation at least in terms of uh financial and operational performance in Indian discoms across like across the country right um like just moving out of Bangalore do you think that this variation how much of a variation is uh of this variation pro provides like a is a bottleneck for preview adoption in India and how much of it is a policy problem? That’s a great question. So one from an IPC perspective what I would say is that for us we’re in a reasonable sweet spot because we are supplying these through OEMs. So the OEM business is our largest business. So what we do is we sell our home chargers to OEMs. OEMs sell these chargers along with the vehicle and people use these chargers at home to charge their vehicle. Right? So there I’m I’m essentially never interfacing with a discom other than the fact of course that our products have to be u actually designed to you know weather these kind of conditions the electrical grid conditions other than that we have no interaction with discoms directly uh on the public infrastructure side there also we’re working with very good partners for example Loris Nutson is one of our partners um they are going they are essentially going to be taking care of the marketing and the actual installation commissioning um and they will be doing those interactions with discom perspective I’d say for us it’s a it’s a limited problem but it’s a very important problem in terms of the industry um so that I’ll take like a more sort of like independent view uh of how things would work there and uh but you are right that this this variation of like different discoms is something uh is an important factor. Um, and I mean mainly I think one of the things of course is things like the technical and commercial losses that exist, the kind of financial health, the voltage regulation, quality of the power grid. Um, then also the quality of the technical staff that exists there. It varies a lot. Um, there are some discoms which are very wellrun like best common in Karnataka for example. I’m not just saying this because I’m from Karnataka but um but for example there are other discoms right which aren’t um as wellun and and there you do have to have first have products that work well in those kind of environments like power grid uh conditions. Um so there we what we do is we try as our approach is to engineer for like worst case grid conditions always right. Um and this mi what this means is our product will have like a wider input wtage tolerance. We have a much higher surge protection level. Just to give you an example, we build for 6 KV surge which is like unheard of everywhere. People maybe do like 4K V surge. Here we’re building systems for like 6 KV surge. Um we also have to take care of a lot of like these voltage fluctuations that come in primarily on the input side. Um so this makes our products more robust, more reliable for sure and that’s how we’re ensur ensuring that they don’t fail in the field irrespective of where the user plugs in this charger. So that way from a product level we’re making it robust. Um so that the power grid condition shouldn’t matter. Uh but when it comes to let’s say on a EV like on a policy side uh the central government so far has had BME drive schemes. is there are multiple state level EV policies that are that have already been rolled out or in the process of being rolled out recently. There was even the the Delhi EV policy. Um so there you’re seeing that um in addition to giving subsidies for consumers and you know purchase or let’s say demand side subsidies um the allocation of let’s say support to upgrading discoms and for EV infrastructure is still like relatively low uh but that is slowly changing now uh because I think even the government and everybody has decided has also realized that uh discoms need to upgrade their infrastructure and be EV ready. That means ready for supplying EV loads which are very dynamic. Um and so they have to take this seriously. It’s also a great opportunity for discoms because this will be like an additional revenue for them which they can see right. So if you also look at the kind of um you know financial health of their they can actually see this as an opportunity um to upgrade themselves. Um and this is something that from a policy level is happening. Investments are slowly um rolling in. But yeah, transformers need to be upgraded, cables have to be upgraded, even the metering side um in anticipation for the kind of EV load that is going to increase. This has to be done. Um and this is something that um is still at initial stages but there is a lot of thought going into this and and I think now with the awareness coming in um a lot of effort is being put in and this will eventually happen. So with respect to our discom right previous videos where you are like specifically telling there like irregularities or rate spikes but I want to know what are these kind of you know fluctuations or spikes that uh these German or for example Chinese chargers are not ready for because as you told previously that these chargers cannot uh withstand India’s condition. Do you have anything in place to you know maybe consider someone buying a EV that has a Chinese charger? uh do you have something in place to replace those chargers which actually support those ports or maybe those software the EV uh product comes with? So in terms of the grid conditions I would say that of course India has does still have power quality issues. Uh we currently operate on a 415 volt 3-phase system which is 50 Hz. So for singlephase that typically means it’s a 240 volt AC system. That’s the singlephase sort of you know voltage that you’re getting from a regular socket. Um but you’ll see that in reality um you know you can see voltages like going less than 200 volts also uh it’ll go up to 300 volts also even though the nominal voltages should be 240 volts right so this could be because of like during peak demand you will see a certain voltage sag you could also have issues where you know voltage fluctuations where suddenly you know there’s a spike like surges can also happen so that way the product should have a wide input wtage range. It should be able to withstand a wide input voltage range. um even though nominal voltage might be 240 but it should be able to withstand as low as let’s say 160 volts even going up to let’s say 3 30 300 320 volts right so one is this wide input wtage range which a lot of the um products which are designed for Europe and China do not have because they have more stable grids those products come here they will easily fail right just on in because of the input side and not being able to withstand that wide input wtage Um the second thing is even on surge like I mentioned earlier our devices or products need to be able to withstand a 6k surge uh but typically in other let’s say Germany like a 4k surge is is something that’s that’s more than enough right you never see anything uh beyond that because it’s a more stable grid um and then of course those are just on the electrical side but then also if you look at the kind of temperatures we have the kind of dust the kind of vibrations we have because of the road conditions because these chargers will either be portable chargers that are kept in the boot of your vehicle or their onboard chargers which are mounted into the vehicle or you know they also see a lot of vibration um water ingress because of the kind of rain uh rains that we have. So it should be able to withstand water ingress, dust ingress, vibration, humidity and this is all in addition to the power grid [laughter] conditions and issues um that I mentioned right so I would say a product that is developed for India can withstand any like can work anywhere in the most reliable way we’re like stress testing every massively stress tested so but and but that’s the reality um and I think Um and that’s also an advantage like a competitive advantage I think that we would have because one we’re building we we’re forced to build like very reliable products but India is also a very large market right so you’re also not only building these products you’re building them at scale so it’ll be reliable but you can also make them cost competitive and then you can export these to any part of the world because they will work anywhere so I I actually see that as an advantage so whether it’s like a Chinese charger or a you know a Germanmade charger. I would say we will do we’ll do it better and cheaper and so that’s like a comparative edge we have because of our you know circumstances. So earlier this year uh India had released a draft electricity policy which is sort of like the whole thing about hey we need to modernize our grid. we need to change how even power procurement contracts work and everything. But um the biggest I think change was where they looked at renewables uh in the grid like in the entire scheme of the Indian grid right how important like do you think the Indian electricity like the electricity policy side of things talks to say the e drive scheme side of things right how what does communication look like between those two things and secondly how important do you think best then becomes right because we know the Indian government is trying to push A lot of best tenders EVs get charged a lot in the evening. You would need that kind of best to store energy that you get only in the morning and afternoon. Yeah. So that’s what I’m saying. The entire I’d say energy infrastructure needs to be relooked at right. So the government has the right idea in that sense where they’re saying okay this needs to be upgraded. this needs to be you know rethought of and so those um policies and those sort of efforts um are going in the right direction um because renewables are getting integrated into the grid. Uh again that is why you need um energy storage right because it’s usually renewables are intermittent. So whether it’s solar or wind it’s intermittent. So if you want it to be a stable sort of source um of you know energy you have to store it um and then supply it when it’s being you know utilized because when it’s being generated is not necessarily the same time that is being utilized. So like if you just look at solar you’ll have more generation happening in the morning but then the actual consumption might be happening like the peak might be happening in the evening right when there’s no sun. So that’s why integrating energy storage also is so important. Um and at the same time power electronics is extremely important which is at the core of each of these things. Uh because without power electronics you can’t let’s say generate power from solar because that DC has to then be you know stored into a battery that again needs to be inverted into AC and fed back into a grid. So all of this requires um a lot of coordination, a lot of integration, a lot of standards, protocols um and also taking care of safety in mind, right? So safety is also very important aspect. These are not being done at like very low power levels also. So that’s why all of this needs to be integrated. Um and and that’s why it’s it’s so important to have a very clear uh policy um standardization safety uh framework uh which will allow all of this to happen or enable all of this to happen. So there might be a lot of components or parts you might be importing right. So what do you think is that one component that’s really hard to you know locally manufacture? uh we’ve seen you talk about uh the need for self-reliance in a lot of your past interviews uh particularly on Chinese supply chains right uh so what what’s the hardest component that you think it like hard from a localization standpoint if if we look at any power electronic device whether it’s a charger or an inverter or a DCDC converter um so essentially it has this you know it’s a converter which is a PCBA A um and in this you have electronic components. So these electronic components are typically semiconductors. So these could be either MOSFETs or IGBTs. Um these are the core switching elements um in any power electronic device will have these MOSFETs or IGBTs basically semiconductors right. So power semiconductors. Now you have not only these power semiconductors all of these need to be controlled by a particular algorithm which is why you need a microcontroller. Now this microcontroller also is essentially both these the semiconductors and these microcontrollers um are currently being imported. Um India does not have a mature semiconductor ecosystem. uh the government of course is trying to change this with the uh the different PLI which are the production linked incentive schemes that have come up and um so now you see a lot of companies investing in semiconductor fabrication uh in India uh but that’ll still take time to mature right that’s still going to take maybe 3 to 5 years uh to mature to reach the kind of um industrialization and the kind of price points that exist in the industry today when I let’s say import from China or Taiwan. So the hardest part if you ask me would be the semiconductors and microcontrollers um to indigenize or localize um because you see right now almost all of these are being primarily imported either from you know China. These are mainly either you know US, European, Japanese manufacturers. all their supply chains are in either China or Taiwan. Um and so that’s just the reality of the supply chain and and how it exists. But like I said, government is pushing this. A lot of policies, incentives are in place. We are going to see that changing let’s say in the next 3 to 5 years, but not anytime anytime soon. Um and the other thing is that uh the other components for example the bare PCBs there are also magnetics which are like transformers and inductors these are slightly easier to localize um because also the kind of capex that they require the kind of investment that they require are relatively lower compared to let’s say setting up semiconductor fab um so these I would say are the next in line um in terms of difficulty level And post that all other things like for example there are passive components like capacitors, inductors that now India of course has some uh very great capacitor manufacturers uh also who have locally designed and developed these products. Um one of our investors also DKI electronics have localized these components these capacitors. We’re actually actually in the process of trying to localize those here and buy them from you know India rather than importing them. So passives I would say are next which are mainly capacitors, resistors um and then of course all the other things um which are right from enclosures, aluminum die castings, uh cables, um you know plastic, rubber parts, all of those mechanicals that already a very good ecosystem and supply chain exists in India and those have already been localized. So right now if you look at our current DVA which is what is called domestic value ad like that’s the term that’s like normally used in this in industry our DVA or domestic value ad is already more than 55%. Which means 55% of whatever we build is already localized in India. Um the remaining is because of these bottlenecks like I mentioned which is mainly the semiconductors, microcontrollers, then the bare PCB and magnetics. These are the main bottlenecks uh which I would like I said would take probably 3 to 5 years still. So uh for example when your when one of the OEMs who your customer right so they might upgrade that battery chemistry or you know change their BMS it’ll cost you a hefty amount of money as well for the R&D of you know designing a new charger. Now the entire process who takes a hit like as in who pays for it as in you take a hit because they are your customers and you know later in anyways you love to manufacture a lot of products for them. So typically it’s done on a on a case-to case basis. It really depends on the kind of change or upgrade that they’re asking for. Um so typically if it’s only a battery chemistry change um usually that means on the charger side only like you know three things can happen. Either they want uh a different power level. Um second is of course it would the the charging protocol which or the firmware would have to be or the software would have to be upgraded uh to match the revised charging profile for that particular chemistry. And the third is if there are any actual physical mechanical interfaces that need to be changed. Right? So like these are the three main categories that we would see. either the whole power level will change or your software and uh integration work would have to be redone and then your actual physical or mechanical interfaces. Now if it is like a small change usually that’s something that we will only take care of and um any NRE charges which are like the the industry term which is like a non-recurring engineering charges um what we do is normally we invest um as a company because we know that um these are OEM relationships that we have the kind of business volume that they will give us in the future is very large so these are also multiund crores of like projects, right? So, we take that call and decide to invest. Um, and this is how it’s been happening. So, whether it’s on the power level upgrading a charger or whether it’s redoing the complete software to integrate with the new battery chemistry or whatever that is, usually that is something that we invest. But normally if there’s something very customized, very specific um which we cannot use for any other OEM um in that case of course there is a discussion that happens. We do give those proposals where the OEMs do agree to invest partially sometimes partially or even fully but yeah so it it’s on a case-toase basis and it also depends on the kind of change how customized it is that they are asking for. Some of them would want to let’s say own the tooling for some of these outer enclosures. Uh because on aesthetic side they want to control what the outer layer of the product looks like and that is again customized only to them. We can’t use that for anybody else. So they know that. So the minute it’s an aesthetic part which they don’t want us to use for anybody else and if it requires expensive tooling, it’s clear that the OEM will will pay for it. So there’s no sort of one fixed rule. Um it depends on a case to case basis. So uh I think the design of these chargers I think they’re patented right like for each each of the companies if I’m not wrong. I don’t know if they’re patent patented or not but the socket uh you know the connectors all of this is different right now for two wheelers. Now if they are patented then it it makes sense that these OEMs actually have to design it you know differently. Now consider two OEMs coming to you and giving you a design and you know that that particular design is already owned by somebody else. Do you say no to that particular design or you help them redesign you know some uh you know redesign the socket or the connector in a different way help them out uh in their business? Uh just as a followup to that um how in this scenario what part of the process is your own intellectual property like Ipex intellectual property? Okay. So, see that’s the main like I said the hardware power electronics part the software the the firmware and the the software that resides on top of it. Uh and then of course any of the manufacturing processes that we deploy to manufacture this product right so this is something that is proprietary to us. Um so typically OEMs come to us with specifications. Um and when they come to us with specifications, it’s up to us on how we want to configure the product internally and then supply it to them. Um that’s what I was trying to tell you earlier that even though if two OEMs have the same power rating, we might use the similar hardware inside just change the software layer on top of it and just the connector interface and inside it’s essentially the same product, right? So there it’s only a spec that is given. So there there is absolutely no concern if I use let’s say the rectifier module in both products there there’s absolutely no issue. Um we also work in contract manufacturing mode where some OEMs might come to us and say that hey we we want this very specific charger we’ve like designed it but we want you to just manufacture it. Uh so that’s a different mode. So what I you know explained earlier was the ODM which is the original design mode. A contract manufacturing mode is a separate mode where an OEM gives you the complete design like not only a specification they give you a complete design the complete blueprints drawings everything and there there’s a separate agreement where you’re clear that you cannot manufacture this product for anybody else. So the terms are very clear and that there’s no app there’s no conflict or anything that appears because you’re working in different modes. So that’s usually how it works. So do you see any risk of these OEMs entering into your business so basically they you know they’re developing their own charger you know maybe tomorrow one of your OEM comes and tells you know we have enough technology in house to build our own chargers. So do you see that as a risk for yourself? I see I think that’s a risk always for like any industry where you can have backward integration right and um and OEMs of course do have very large like access to capital budget steam so they can easily do this if they want to but I think what is important that us as a charging partner to these OEMs have to add value to them and if they see the value that we add they will want to continue to work with us. So whether that value is being offered by launching innovative products faster than what they are able to do. Uh that is one value that you can add right like okay they’re working on a certain charger but we are working on miniaturaturizing it. We are working on increasing the power density in the same form factor because we are more focused on charging. They’re looking at you know the entire vehicle and so our focus is more on this product so we can innovate faster than them. Right? So that’s one value and if they had to build a team to do the same thing they would require much larger teams a lot of you know um effort that goes into it resources that go into it which also comes at a cost. So one they’ll see we are experts in this we understand this very well we are innovating faster. The second thing is that because as a supplier or a partner to them, we’ll have economies of scale because we’re supplying these not only to them, we’re also supplying this to like 10 other EV manufacturers. So it’s not just the volume of this. So it’s not let’s say it’s not just Atheros’s volume or Baja’s volume. We’re supplying to let’s say everyone. So I am able because I am buying a lot more components because I’m manufacturing a lot more components I am able to do it much more in a more efficient way in a more cost effective way and I I basically have economies of scale. So if you’re giving the technology innovation advantage if you’re giving the economies of scale competitive advantage um you’re also derisking a lot of their supply chain issues which is a big thing these these days. So if you’re able to add that value, I I think OEMs definitely see that and then they’ll want to fix you know work uh to their strengths and their core which is manufacturing vehicles rather than charging systems and you know power management systems. Um so so that is the sort of at least that’s how I think it’ll go from what little we know vertical integration has obviously been a big feature not just in India like not just with say a or TVS or Bajage but obviously even Chinese brands like say BYD or Gili right it probably partly because it’s an early industry it’s like there is still a lot more gate to go like a lot more uh progress left uh very similarly Back when Ford built its first car, right, they chose to vertically integrate because obviously in the market there were no real like suppliers for the various components, right? How do you see this particular trend evolve fragment from where you sit right from the business that you do? So I think of course vertical integration is very important initially on right because these are like you rightly said um from a technology point of view still very new a lot of rapid technology advancements are happening so OEMs as much as possible want to have control or access to the entire piece to be able to give that differentiator or that better user experience right by having more seamlessly integrated systems Um so that is the thought process initially but I think as adoption grows as you know the industry and market also grows and and matures it’s it’s not then it’s not only about integrating something it’s also about constantly upgrading something it’s also about constant also you know scaling something up um and all of that cannot be done in isolation by one let’s say entity Um if you look at the automotive industry right now, you know, the the traditional IC engine vehicle industry, you will see that there’s a very large ecosystem of OEMs, tier ones, tier 2s, tier threes that exist because of the kind of innovation, the kind of scale volumes, uh after seal support, the the kind of just say the and here in this case you also have you know infrastructure like power infrastructure also coming in. So all of this will require a much larger ecosystem play. It will require a lot of multi- disciplinary capabilities. Um and I think people will also realize that they would want to focus their resources on where they should and the other things can be worked in a more collaborative partnership mode. If we really want to scale because India itself is a large market uh more than 23 million vehicles are sold every year. We not only want to you know provide for India, we want to also export globally. So I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done and which is why focus is required and if you know we try to do everything all at once then you know it’s probably the most not the the most efficient way to work. Plus obviously India has what one of the largest auto ancillary industries at least in internal combustion. So which is why also we partly asked you this question because we see that fragmentation. No and that’ll happen eventually because like I said anywhere where there is scale anywhere that there are multidisciplinary stakeholders coming in in order to enable and scale uh an ecosystem you do need collaboration. It’s otherwise the kind of resources or the kind of effort that is required is is very very large. Like there is an OEM that tried to do this. I’m not going to name them. It’s a two-heer OEM. You can see how it has impacted impacted them and now they’re pivoting into becoming an energy storage company from a two-heer company. But I mean it it it it does impact because I think focus is very important. So as in you you have already answered it but I just want to you know ask you again you know uh prana you know absolutely loves this company BYD which is a Chinese company but you know you might have heard him say BYD at least twice in this call but uh again again again regarding BYD they they were a battery manufacturers first and then they you know started manufacturing cars now uh so are we going to see a IPEX scooter maybe in 5 or 10 years down the line. Definitely not. That I can tell you for sure because like I said, our ambition and vision is to be a power electronics company because we truly believe that um energy transitions are happening around us not only in power generation like let’s say renewables but also in transportation from let’s say IC engine vehicles going to EVs. Um and none of this will be possible without power electronics because power electronics sits at the core. Um so our focus is to be a power electronics company. Uh to build products for the EV industry, to build products for let’s say renewables, to build products for energy storage. Um so it’s a very different ambition. Um, and and also we wouldn’t want like I I was just talking about focus earlier and so we’d want to continue that focus and of course I wouldn’t want to go and compete with my customers which I don’t want to do ever. Yeah. So I think we’re very clear in terms of where we want to play what our advantages is. uh at Meah our background was always uh power systems, power distribution, power quality and that’s what we know and that’s what we’re good at and that’s why we’re going to continue in the power electronic space. Um and we will let the EV OEMs do the amazing work that they are doing and we will continue to support them uh with any of the power electronic products that they need. Awesome. Uh last question which is what’s your outlook like for uh fiscal year 2027 what are you excited about so IP yeah for this year a lot of great things are happening um one purely in terms of business size we are going to be doubling in terms of of sales um so that is a challenge where we need we’re in the process of expanding capacities um very aggressively uh because the EV industry is growing very rapidly Um and we’ve onboarded new customers as well. So one sort of servicing this 2x growth that we’re seeing um which requires but basically the the five M which is manpower, it’s method, it’s machinery, it’s materials and then of course money. So it requires all of these to be enhanced to be upgraded to just have a 2x output. Um this is something that we’re pretty excited about. Uh the team is also getting strengthened. At the same time, we’re developing a lot of new products. Uh the birectional charger is one product which I’m like especially excited about because I like I said, it’s a different use case where I’m not able like not only able to use the charger to charge the vehicle, but then I can also use this charger to then use the energy that’s stored in the battery to power a small load. And and that’s a use case that can be used even in let’s say um not only tier one cities but tier 2, tier three rural India also where let’s say they might have um like power outages and then you can just use the remaining charge on your let’s say vehicle to power a small load like a lighting load or any other load that you might want to use. So um we have those products coming out. Uh we are also rolling out uh the complete end-to-end EV charging solutions which is the hardware CMS mobile app. Um and we’re doing this in collaboration with Loris Nutson which is a Schneider Electric company. So that will be a very new sort of segment for us and so we’re quite excited about that as well. Great. Awesome. Great. Uh thank you so much uh Sora for doing this. This was a fascinating conversation where we got to learn a lot. Um, and yeah, I think I’ll be thinking about a lot of things on this conversation. Yeah, this was this was a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Zora. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you so much for having me.