How Data and Intelligence Are Wiring India’s Electric Vehicl…

India’s electric vehicle (EV) industry is entering a decisive new phase, one where algorithms, not just batteries and chargers, are beginning to determine performance, profitability, and adoption. From predictive maintenance to hyper-local charging intelligence and advanced battery-life analytics, AI is rapidly transforming the country’s EV ecosystem into a data-driven, interoperable network.

During a media roundtable with the Bolt Earth leadership, it became clear that EVs in India are now software-defined machines, and AI is the glue holding together a fragmented landscape of chemistries, OEMs, and charging standards. Bengaluru-based Bolt Earth claims to be India’s largest EV charging network.

Reinventing Charging Through Data Science

Bolt Earth CEO Raghav Bharadwaj told AIM that they have already adapted to the shift toward AI-driven infrastructure. “We control the entire charging stack, hardware, software, and operations. What that allows us to do is give the best charging experiences to customers,” he said.

The company’s fast-growing network of chargers feeds real-time data into a proprietary back-end system, enabling the data science team to predict charger failures before they occur. 

Bharadwaj said that they monitor the data from their chargers in real-time, and use analytic detection software to gauge potential chargers that could have issues in the future. “We’re able to send technicians to make sure the chargers are constantly working.”

Bolt Earth is also developing APIs for utility companies that provide unprecedented visibility into where EV charging demand is emerging, a capability that will become essential as EV adoption grows. This is a crucial step toward avoiding grid overload, especially as EV density rises. 

Vasudha Madhavan, founder and CEO of Ostara Advisors, an investment firm deeply involved in climate and mobility technologies, emphasised the rising importance of this AI-driven “handshake” between mobility and energy. 

“When you have increased demand for energy from mobility, you want to be able to manage the load at different times of day and adapt to high-priority loads. Software and AI can do this very effectively,” she told AIM.

AI as the Universal Battery Brain

India’s EV ecosystem is notoriously fragmented, chargers vary by connector type, batteries vary by chemistry, and OEMs follow different data practices. Yet, Ashwin Shankar, founder of BatteryPool, believes AI can unify this landscape.

“We see ourselves as being a unifying layer across the different fragmented players in the ecosystem,” Shankar said. “Different OEMs, different chemistries, but if you have a product that can understand the chemistry and how to best manage it, that can be a unifying product.”

BatteryPool’s smart chargers use embedded algorithms to detect the type of battery being charged and automatically adjust the “charging recipe.”

“The charger understands which battery it is charging… and sets the appropriate charging recipe to charge that battery back,” Shankar explained. “An NMC and an LFP battery behave very differently at high temperatures, and the charger can throttle charging to ensure longevity.”

Intelligence Tuned to Indian Conditions

India’s climate is unforgiving: high temperatures, steep humidity shifts, and unpredictable usage patterns degrade batteries faster than in Western markets. AI is beginning to correct that.

“When you have batteries that come back in the heat of summer in a city like Jaipur, you want to understand what chemistry the battery is and charge it in a way that ensures longevity,” Shankar said. 

India’s EV future will rely on AI models tailored to local road conditions, heat cycles, and driving habits, which local startups are well-equipped to provide.

Prediction as a Financial Engine

Madhavan highlighted how AI-driven data transparency is reshaping financing across the climate and mobility sectors. “We have seen AI being used in the financing of EVs… Even in green financing, you can have AI applications. These help track usage of the EV and create better intelligence for financial decisions.”

BatteryPool has taken AI beyond asset management into fintech territory through its innovative pay-as-you-go battery program, which allows drivers, especially gig and fleet workers, to pay for their batteries daily.

Because BatteryPool tracks battery usage continuously, the company can build a real-time “pseudo credit score” for drivers. “If a driver is not using his battery pack, we know he’s unlikely to be earning money and unlikely to be able to pay,” Shankar said. “We have a smart way of preempting or predicting a potential default case.”

This dramatically reduces the cost of financing for low-income users. “Customers who avail financial products through BatteryPool get them at a lower cost compared to vanilla financing,” he added.

A Data Problem and a Data Opportunity

Despite all the progress, India’s charging and battery data ecosystem is still young. “The market is very nascent,” Bharadwaj noted. Even one lakh chargers remain a small number, he said adding, “there’s only so much you can do with limited data.” He predicts the real AI breakthroughs will arrive after 2027 or 2028, once the volume of data packets dramatically increases.

Shankar agrees that shared data standards could accelerate this shift. “Creating common standards for how battery data is accessed can significantly help in building products that work across the industry,” he said.

Madhavan stressed the need for standardised data collection across mobility, energy, and infrastructure. “Creating common standards for how data is accessed can significantly help in building products that work across the industry,” she said.

The Inevitable Rise of the Software-Defined EV

Hardware deployment is still necessary, but the long-term value will come from intelligence. “At some point, you’re going to finish deploying the hardware, and all the advancements are going to come from software,” Bharadwaj said. “Just like smartphones, today, the biggest difference between one phone and another is software.”

Shankar echoed this from a startup’s vantage point: “We’ve always seen ourselves as a tech-first company… Every week, we think about the next IP or next edge we can build.”

EVs, he added, are becoming “software-defined vehicles,” where AI influences everything from route optimisation to battery swapping operations to customer support.

Speaking on this shift in the broader climate tech landscape, Madhavan said, “AI is influencing almost all sectors: mobility, storage, energy management. You can now use AI inside the vehicle, at the grid level, or even to improve component design.”

AI is no longer an add-on in India’s EV industry; it is emerging as the critical infrastructure that will determine reliability, efficiency, affordability, and long-term sustainability.

The post How Data and Intelligence Are Wiring India’s Electric Vehicle Future appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.

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