december 2016 masayoshi son founder and chairman of japans softbank was upbeat he had just met prime minister narendra modi to highlight the companys commitment to india one of sons wishes for ola a cab aggregator that softbank has invested in since 2014 veered between eccentric and plain impractical he wanted it to give away a million electric cars made in india for free to drivers of ola cars this is a wish and not a commitment son told et in delhi that same month commercial vehicles manufacturer ashok leyland was more guarded on the electric front it launched circuit an electric bus whose price starts at rs 15 crore which was testdriven by the chennai metropolitan transport corporation in six months vinod k dasari managing director of ashok leyland told analysts on an earnings call in may 2017 about its electric vehicle ev plan we are ramping up our electric capabilities and capacities he said we are very bullish about this the company was committing rs 500 crore for rd toward euro 6 bs vi as well as ev its ev strategy dasari said has three paths one to leverage its subsidiary optares technologies in europe two the inhouse circuit development and three work with government on a battery swapping technology quite naturally an analyst ashish nigam of axis capital asked with the strange battery swapping plan will ashok leylands realisation of profitability per week get compromised dasaris response was axiomatic if the value of the vehicle goes up our gross profits go up because we will still have to make the whole vehicle a question lingered what is the strange battery swapping plan to realise the essence of battery swapping ashok leyland has inked a strategic tieup with sun mobility a startup borne out of a joint venture between virya mobility 50 in bengaluru and private equity fund sun groups new energy systems it is the new gig of chetan maini the innovator behind reva indias first electric car venture owned by mahindra mahindra since 2010 between the wishful thinking of masayoshi son and the uncertainty in indian auto about the future of internal combustion engines ice because of the governments eawakening in august sun mobility is singularly focusing on the one barrier to commercialising electric mass transport cost its answer is battery swapping which can be done in charging stations at scale in indias large cities since a swapping station will immediately exchange depleted batteries with charged batteries evs wont have to wait to get charged ev driver pays for the depleted energy which can be measured because batteries are iotenabled its payasyougo in its stations sun mobility plans to undertake the cost of owning assembling and maintaining lithiumion batteries that is if the policy swings in favour of swapping stations in november minister for road transport and highways nitin gadkari had criticised niti aayogs batteryswapping policy saying it is not appropriate for the country because it is a very difficult thing the government