How they make the world's fastest EV chargers | Exponent Energy CEO gives factory tour! BP2B S2 Ep.7

1. 0:00 – 0:52

   Introduction

   1. AVArun Vinayak0:00

      Exponent is actually in this cusp of energy, automotive, [chuckles] and, and financing, which is very important for commercial vehicles. So we are in three big boy segments.

   2. SPSpeaker0:11

      Building in India, Make in India-

   3. AVArun Vinayak0:12

      Yeah

   4. SPSpeaker0:13

      ... is hard the first time.

   5. AVArun Vinayak0:14

      Yeah.

   6. SPSpeaker0:14

      And you've chosen to do this twice.

   7. AVArun Vinayak0:17

      Yeah, sometimes I, I ask myself why. [laughing] But those times are maybe 5% of the times. 95% of the time, I'm happy. It, it makes no sense to just... At least personally, it, it, it's not exciting to build lab prototypes, right? If you have to actually meaningfully change the world, you have to build crazy tech that actually disrupts. Energy is all about battery technology and charging network, so we are a full-stack energy company. Uh, are we a battery company or are we a charging company? [upbeat music]

2. 0:52 – 1:30

   Meet Arun Vinayak: Co-Founder and CEO of Exponent Energy

   1. SPSpeaker0:52

      Hello, and welcome to the Best Place to Build Podcast. Today, we are at the Exponent Energy factory in Bangalore. Uh, we are with Arun Vinayak. He's the CEO and co-founder of Exponent, also IIT Madras alumnus, batch of 2013. Uh, he was the CPO, chief product officer, for Ather for five, six, seven years. Uh, hello, and welcome to the podcast, Arun.

   2. AVArun Vinayak1:14

      Hey, Amit, thanks so much for having me here. Super! Thanks for, thanks for coming to the factory.

   3. SPSpeaker1:18

      Yeah. Um, this is amazing. Thank you so much. Um, I want to start by asking you, what does Exponent do?

   4. AVArun Vinayak1:27

      Exponent is fundamentally an energy

3. 1:30 – 3:23

   Exponent Energy & the world’s fastest EV charger

   1. AVArun Vinayak1:30

      company. Uh, what you think of energy today as oil, tomorrow is batteries plus chargers. So we are building the full-stack energy company, uh, which includes battery technology and charging ecosystem that will power the future of energy, which, and power all the electric vehicles in the future.

   2. SPSpeaker1:46

      Right. And you're focused on the commercial vehicle segment?

   3. AVArun Vinayak1:49

      Yeah, we're exclusively focused on commercial vehicle seg- segment. Um, in India, commercial vehicles are just 10% of the vehicles on the ground, but they consume 70% of the energy. So-

   4. SPSpeaker1:58

      Right

   5. AVArun Vinayak1:58

      ... uh, that's the biggest energy segment for us to electrify. And, uh, they, they all need ultra-fast... They all need the freedom, flexibility to keep earning, so we built the world's fastest charging tech for them, 15 minutes fast charging.

   6. SPSpeaker2:12

      And this 15 minutes is for, uh, three-wheelers?

   7. AVArun Vinayak2:15

      Three-wheelers to buses, so even buses-

   8. SPSpeaker2:17

      Three--

   9. AVArun Vinayak2:18

      ... charging 15 minutes.

   10. SPSpeaker2:19

       Okay.

   11. AVArun Vinayak2:19

       So we have, like, a one-and-a-half megawatt charger that charges these buses up in 15 minutes.

   12. SPSpeaker2:25

       Okay.

   13. AVArun Vinayak2:25

       Uh, it's the world's highest power charger.

   14. SPSpeaker2:27

       You can charge a bus in 15 minutes?

   15. AVArun Vinayak2:29

       Yeah, we, we already charge a bus in 15 minutes.

   16. SPSpeaker2:30

       It takes longer to fill fuel in a bus.

   17. AVArun Vinayak2:33

       Yeah. I, I-- actually, you're right. I think bus, bus refueling time is longer than 15.

   18. SPSpeaker2:38

       Nice. Very interesting. And we are here, sitting here, right here, so we have this in the background. What is this?

   19. AVArun Vinayak2:44

       So this is actually our ePump. Uh, so, like you have a fuel pump today, the-- this will be ePumps, where you can come and recharge like you refuel. Uh, this is actually our intra-city ePump that caters to three-wheelers and LCVs, and the smaller form factors. Uh, that's the connector right there. So you, you go, you connect, and you charge. And, uh, uh, this one as well.

   20. SPSpeaker3:03

       So a, a three-wheeler or a four-wheel, uh, or a maybe a Tata Ace kind of vehicle would come here. That thing would fit in, 15 minutes, you're done?

   21. AVArun Vinayak3:11

       Yeah. That's, that's, that's it.

   22. SPSpeaker3:12

       Nice. So cool. So Arun, um, there's a lot to talk about. Uh, I, I want to start with some character development. I read, and correct me if

4. 3:23 – 5:41

   Building a car at 16 years old

   1. SPSpeaker3:23

      I'm wrong, is it true that you built a car when you were 16?

   2. AVArun Vinayak3:27

      Yes. Uh, yeah, I just generally loved building stuff, uh, when I was young, and my parents were kind enough to let me do things.

   3. SPSpeaker3:37

      Sorry, you have to give us much more detail than this. What is this story? Why were you building a car? [chuckles] And, uh, how did you go about it?

   4. AVArun Vinayak3:44

      Yeah, I, I, I think this was around, uh, school time. Uh, I think I got dumped by my girlfriend back then, and I was very angry. And obviously, the next logical thing to do is build a car. [laughing]

   5. SPSpeaker3:55

      [laughing] Uh, sorry, that is... Right.

   6. AVArun Vinayak3:58

      Sure. Uh, so this place called Shivajinagar in Bangalore is really cool, so it used to have a lot... It, it's basically a scrap market, but there's also, like, this hidden piece of diamond if you go f- know-- if you know what you're looking for. So it's called Gujri in, in there. And so we used to go pick up all the second-hand engine parts, bearing parts, wheel parts. So, and, uh, I had-- my best friend from school has had a factory... His dad had a factory, so, you know, we had access to all this cutting, grinding, welding machines. So we used this grease monkeying, uh, the crap out of that.

   7. SPSpeaker4:27

      The way you des-

   8. AVArun Vinayak4:28

      It was the summer.

   9. SPSpeaker4:28

      The way you're describing it, it reminds me of this Discovery Channel show called, uh, Junkyard Wars.

   10. AVArun Vinayak4:32

       Oh, yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker4:33

       Do you remember this show?

   12. AVArun Vinayak4:33

       Did, did you watch it growing up as well?

   13. SPSpeaker4:35

       Yes, I did.

   14. AVArun Vinayak4:35

       Yeah, yeah, I, I watched it growing up on Discovery Channel, yeah. And, and I, and I think, Shastra, you guys started the-

   15. SPSpeaker4:40

       Yeah

   16. AVArun Vinayak4:40

       ... uh, Junkyard Wars.

   17. SPSpeaker4:40

       So, uh, the, the show is that, uh, the, the k- the, the competitors are given a challenge to build something-

   18. AVArun Vinayak4:47

       Yeah

   19. SPSpeaker4:47

       ... and they are sent to a scrapyard, like how you're [chuckles] describing Shivajinagar market.

   20. AVArun Vinayak4:50

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker4:51

       They have to pick up the parts and sort of put it together.

   22. AVArun Vinayak4:53

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we, we were playing real-life Junkyard Wars, but of course, we had, like, a month of summer to do it and-

   23. SPSpeaker4:59

       Nice

   24. AVArun Vinayak4:59

       ... but a lot less budget, so [laughing]

   25. SPSpeaker5:01

       [laughing] Was it something that actually drove?

   26. AVArun Vinayak5:03

       Yeah, it drove. It drove. It drove really, really well, actually. It didn't have brakes, so you had to, like, steer left and right aggressively to slow the vehicle down. [chuckles] Uh, but I think that was, uh, like a very distinct memory, where there was a permanent switch on. I said, "This is what I will do the rest of my life" because I was so happy. Like, the joy of building something, driving something you built, was so intrinsic. That was, like, a permanent switch, and I said, "Okay, I will do mobility all my life."

   27. SPSpeaker5:25

       Mm.

   28. AVArun Vinayak5:25

       And I think sort of stuck to that since then.

   29. SPSpeaker5:28

       Something's coming to my mind. I'm gonna say it. It's politically super incorrect-

   30. AVArun Vinayak5:31

       Right
5. 5:41 – 7:10

   Building the future of Energy

   1. SPSpeaker5:41

      so now you are the f- co-founder and CEO of Exponent Energy. Can you, um, quickly run us through, uh, what Exponent does?

   2. AVArun Vinayak5:51

      Yeah. Uh, so, so at Exponent, we're building the future of energy. Um, and with EVs, energy is all about battery technology and charging network, so we are a full-stack energy company.... uh, are we a battery company or are we a charging company? Lancer is both. We think you have to do both to solve energy. You need the best battery technology, powered up with the best charging ecosystem, so the best- the end customer has the best energy experience on a daily basis. So that's what we do.

   3. SPSpeaker6:22

      Nice.

   4. AVArun Vinayak6:22

      And, uh, s- step one for this is we build the world's fastest charging tech. Um, so in 15 minutes, we charge the entire vehicles up, whether it's three-wheelers or even buses. Um, and of course-

   5. SPSpeaker6:33

      While walking into your factory, I saw a large bus.

   6. AVArun Vinayak6:35

      Yeah.

   7. SPSpeaker6:35

      It's like one of those intercity buses. Are you saying that your tech can charge one of those EV buses in 15 minutes?

   8. AVArun Vinayak6:42

      Yeah. So the charger you see next to that is actually the world's highest power charger. It's a 1.5 megawatt charger, um, that's completely built here in India, in our facility. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, what's ... See, I think if you look at the last 10, 15 years, EVs have gone from being toys for the rich to now mainstream vehicles.

   9. SPSpeaker6:59

      Mm.

   10. AVArun Vinayak6:59

       Uh, if I take the battery out of the equation, your electric vehicle is perfect, right? It's faster, it's sexier, it lasts forever, it's cheaper.

   11. SPSpeaker7:09

       Mm.

   12. AVArun Vinayak7:09

       So really,

6. 7:10 – 11:07

   What’s holding back EV adoption

   1. AVArun Vinayak7:10

      what's-- we think what's holding back our adoption is energy, right? Questions like: Where do I charge? How long will it take? Will my battery last? So it's all energy problems and not vehicle problems, right? So we really-- That's why we started Exponent, to say, "What if we just make energy so seamless, so accessible, that, that you will, mm, obviously choose electric?"

   2. SPSpeaker7:28

      That's a fantastic point. I was, uh, reading a commentary which said that we had petrol vehicles earlier, or ICE vehicles, uh, ICE engine vehicles, and now we are moving to EV. But if the opposite had happened, if EV had come first-

   3. AVArun Vinayak7:41

      Yeah

   4. SPSpeaker7:42

      ... then somebody driving an EV would never willingly move to ICE because more vibration, more sound-

   5. AVArun Vinayak7:48

      Yeah

   6. SPSpeaker7:49

      ... less control on acceleration. It just doesn't make any sense. Um, so I get what you're saying is that, uh, the vehicle is better, but all the things around it are, are, uh, are a bit of a stressful point.

   7. AVArun Vinayak8:03

      Yeah, primarily the energy ecosystem. And I think, uh, everyone looks-- vehicles tend to get a lot of the attention because it's sexy. It's a-- I love vehicles, and I've been part of the vehicle-building journey. Uh, but really, we think energy ecosystems makes mobility, right?

   8. SPSpeaker8:19

      Mm.

   9. AVArun Vinayak8:19

      Uh, in, in that example, right, there were EVs and there were petrol vehicles, but the energy ecosystem of petroleum just made mobility happen faster there in that direction.

   10. SPSpeaker8:29

       Sure. You're talking about the early 1900 EV vehicles.

   11. AVArun Vinayak8:32

       Early 1900, right. So, so if you want to make EVs happen, it's not just about building more vehicles. We have to fundamentally make the energy ecosystem work. Uh, it has to be faster, it has to be cheaper, it has to let you go further, and that's what mobility is all about. You want the freedom and you want the flexibility to do whatever you want, whenever you want, right? Um, and you wanna go faster, you wanna pay lesser to go faster.

   12. SPSpeaker8:52

       Sure.

   13. AVArun Vinayak8:52

       You wanna pay lesser to go further, and so on.

   14. SPSpeaker8:54

       I think I have a Ather bike and, uh, obviously, the, the few of us who have EVs personally get asked a lot of questions by other people, you know, "How is this driving it?" The one question that always comes almost upfront is: How long does it take to charge? Um, what about range anxiety, and, uh, whether it shows the true range, and whether it'll just suddenly dip, and things like that. So I, I get what you're saying. How is 15-minute charging a solution to this?

   15. AVArun Vinayak9:22

       In, in most cases, um ... And we've done a lot of A/B testing on this, right? So, uh, so, so one of the realities in India is that most people don't even park at home.

   16. SPSpeaker9:30

       Mm.

   17. AVArun Vinayak9:31

       Right? Uh, and I'm not talking of the top 5% people buying, I guess-

   18. SPSpeaker9:38

       Sure

   19. AVArun Vinayak9:38

       ... the cars and the motorcycles.

   20. SPSpeaker9:40

       You're saying it's parked on the street-

   21. AVArun Vinayak9:41

       It's parked on the street

   22. SPSpeaker9:42

       ... or it's parked in a, in a empty lot nearby.

   23. AVArun Vinayak9:44

       Exactly, right. Uh, so when I look at, say, someone who owns a auto rickshaw, for example, uh, the first- they actually park it on the road or somewhere. It's generally one to two kilometers away from their house, right? So the first thing they do in the morning is they go fill up CNG. Uh, and it's-- CNG takes an hour, hour and a half, by the way, right? Uh, so, and they sort of do this on a daily basis. And if they want to earn more, then they top up more, and they earn more. So they sort of have this flexi, on-demand energy ecosystem that en- enables them to buy CNG or LPG vehicles, right? So we're-- it's very annoying for someone to go to a public location and wait for an hour, hour and a half, or two hours. So we think one-hour charging, what, what the world considers fast, is not fast enough. Imagine going to a public spot and waiting one hour, twice a day, right? It's, it's, it's, it's just-- it's ridiculous that people are expected to do that. So we said, "What if you can bring this transaction down to as fast as 10 minutes," right? So 15 minutes is a full charge. So generally, our average transaction time, you come in with 20, 30% left. Within 10 minutes, you're out. Of course, we want to go faster. Uh, why 15 minutes? Because our technology today is at 15 minutes. The global average is anywhere between one and a half hours to four hours. Uh, we are working on technology that already allows you to do this in five minutes, uh, which hopefully we'll launch in three, four years from now. Um ...

   24. SPSpeaker10:59

       Mm.

   25. AVArun Vinayak11:00

       But yeah, there'll be-- I think how fast is fast enough? It's never gonna be fast enough, and that's the beauty of it, so we wanna, uh, keep going faster.

7. 11:07 – 12:36

   The Real Challenge: Charging Infrastructure

   1. SPSpeaker11:07

      Sure. So, um, also from the pump point of view, uh, in 15 minutes per vehicle, or 10 minutes per vehicle, literally means, like, five vehicles per hour. Uh, but-- and, and so maybe realistically, about 50 vehicles a day or something like that.

   2. AVArun Vinayak11:23

      Yeah, actually, that's a really interesting point that you ... Yeah, uh, bang on, right? Uh, I think you sort of hit on a very important problem. This whole thing started organically from trying to ask a simple question: How do you make charging stations to make money? I mean, if you need charging stations everywhere, then people have to invest in charging stations. And if people have to invest in charging stations, it has to make money. If it has to make money, you have to sell a lot of energy on the same square feet of land.

   3. SPSpeaker11:49

      Mm.

   4. AVArun Vinayak11:50

      Um, so today, one of the big problems with charging is, I pay for parking, which real estate is the biggest cost of most businesses within the city. Uh, so I set up a piece of land, I charge two vehicles a day, it's a terrible business, right? I don't make enough money.

   5. SPSpeaker12:03

      Yeah.

   6. AVArun Vinayak12:03

      Else, I have to charge you, as end customer, a very premium, uh, surcharge, uh, to sort of compensate. Which again, works for-... I would say premium passenger cars and maybe two-wheelers, where it's more emergency use case. But when we're talking of commercial vehicles, um, they're very price sensitive, uh, and they sort of depend on it on a daily basis. So you've got to get the right price point, uh, which means you can only charge them so much, right, on the upper end. Uh-

   7. SPSpeaker12:30

      Here, you mean price?

   8. AVArun Vinayak12:32

      Sorry, price them, [chuckles] uh, so much on the upper end for charging. Uh,

8. 12:36 – 16:12

   The Energy Economics and EV vs Petroleum

   1. AVArun Vinayak12:36

      so the- then you just have to rethink the economics. You just have to sell 10X, 20X more energy on the same square of land, which means you've got to just charge faster, right? You've got to have more throughput. So, so then you've got to rethink the entire energy stack: the chargers, the connectors, the battery pack. How are you transferring that energy faster and faster? So it's a, it's a fundamentally energy transaction problem that you've got to solve.

   2. SPSpeaker12:57

      Fair enough. And, uh, uh, I think the nuance there also, maybe, um, we didn't open with this, but you were, a, a, a, a founding member of Ather. And I'm s- I'm guessing that because you were with Ather for so long as their head of product, you were probably more aware of the charging infrastructure problem because they were also building a charging infrastructure-

   3. AVArun Vinayak13:16

      Yeah

   4. SPSpeaker13:16

      ... maybe for a different segment.

   5. AVArun Vinayak13:18

      Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, so I, I think the, uh, Ather was a really fun journey. Uh, learned a lot on building tech there. Uh...

   6. SPSpeaker13:26

      Maybe we can come back to the Ather journey. Let's stick with this 15-minute charging journey. Um, I understand that you're basically pouring energy into the battery. I've read what you have said before. Um, I-- What are the engineering challenges of, um, fast charging? Like, why doesn't every battery charge fast?

   7. AVArun Vinayak13:46

      Right. Uh, so today, fundamentally, people approach energy transactions the way they approached... People approach energy from the way they approached petroleum, right? So you have charge point operators thinking their job is set up chargers on the ground, uh, and you have battery manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers figuring stuff out on the vehicle, right?

   8. SPSpeaker14:06

      Mm.

   9. AVArun Vinayak14:06

      Um, now, this decoupled approach worked in the petroleum world, right? In fact, if you look at petroleum, um, the, the hard bit about energy there is to find petroleum, and actually extract it, refine it, distribute it, right? The transaction is super easy. It's a simple, dumb, mechanical process.

   10. SPSpeaker14:23

       Yeah.

   11. AVArun Vinayak14:23

       So you have one nozzle that can easily just dump liquid into a can, which is also a fairly dumb can. Um, and it can do it for a bus or a two-wheeler or a three-wheeler or passenger car. So it's like decoupled ecosystems.

   12. SPSpeaker14:35

       Yeah. I mean, at max, you need one sensor to say that the can is full.

   13. AVArun Vinayak14:39

       Yeah, which is also a vehicle-side problem, right? So the petrol guy-- Oh, sure, you can also use the petrol nozzle. Uh, fair, right? Uh, but there's fundamentally no interaction between-

   14. SPSpeaker14:50

       Yeah

   15. AVArun Vinayak14:50

       ... the deep interaction between the two ecosystems. But you bring all this to EV, right? Actually, the upstream is solved. There's energy all around us. There's energy in the world right now, right? Uh, now, how do I take energy from the wall to the vehicle? It's actually a midstream problem, it's a transaction problem. And by definition, transaction problems are two-sided problems, right? So to solve rapid charging, it's not about saying, "Well, I, I can build a battery," or, "I can build a charger." Each of, each of it by itself is useless. So you have to actually build the entire energy stack that helps you transact energy, really. It's like Visa, right? Visa for Money. It's about credit card and POS machines. You've got to build both, uh, to manage faster and more seamless transactions. Um, so, so just like money went from hard cash to electronic payments, energy is going from dumb molecules you pour and burn, to s- to electrons, right? So the energy transactions and energy management systems are super key. Uh, so the-- so I think fundamentally, it's about companies starting to think full stack that's needed to even approach this from a rapid charging... to, to achieve rapid charging.

   16. SPSpeaker15:48

       Okay, I hear you. You are saying that fast charging means that the, the socket in the wall, um, the, the infrastructure there or the, or the equipment there, and the thing in your battery pack, they have to talk to each other, and there has to be some kind of intelligent exchange? Uh-

   17. AVArun Vinayak16:04

       Yes.

   18. SPSpeaker16:04

       From a very fundamental point of view, if I just... They-- Suppose there's no in- intelligent exchange, and I just turn the knob

9. 16:12 – 19:55

   Why you can’t just pass more current to a battery

   1. SPSpeaker16:12

      up-

   2. AVArun Vinayak16:12

      Right. [chuckles]

   3. SPSpeaker16:13

      ... and just pass more current into the battery, what happens? I mean, I have a sense of what happens, but can you give me a-

   4. AVArun Vinayak16:18

      Yeah, two things happen. First, you would kill the cell. Uh, so what you're charging is... At the end of the day, battery packs have hundreds of cells. Uh, today, it's lithium-ion. It could be any cell, uh, right? Uh, but cells are cans with chemicals, right? They have an electrode, uh, they have, uh, cathode, anode, electrolyte. We've all read about this.

   5. SPSpeaker16:35

      Sure.

   6. AVArun Vinayak16:36

      Uh, so-

   7. SPSpeaker16:36

      Cathode, anode, electrolyte.

   8. AVArun Vinayak16:37

      Right. And so you just, like-- And it's a bunch of electrochemical reactions.

   9. SPSpeaker16:40

      Mm.

   10. AVArun Vinayak16:40

       Right? So if you just, like, amp it up blindly, you will destroy-- The, the chemical reaction inside would go berserk, and you'd have a thing, bunch of issues. In lithium-ion cells, or in any ionic cell, you have something called crowding, anodic crowding and anodic plating, where if you just, like, up the current, you would increase the rate of reactions, right? Uh, and you'd increase the entropy inside the cell.

   11. SPSpeaker16:59

       Mm.

   12. AVArun Vinayak17:00

       Uh, and more entropy means more chaos, which means more fracture zones, which means-

   13. SPSpeaker17:04

       Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're moving too fast for me. There's a chemical in... There is a reaction, there's a reversible reaction inside the cell.

   14. AVArun Vinayak17:12

       Yes.

   15. SPSpeaker17:12

       One side of the reaction gives energy out.

   16. AVArun Vinayak17:15

       Yes.

   17. SPSpeaker17:15

       And if I pour energy in, the reaction goes in the reverse and stores that energy-

   18. AVArun Vinayak17:19

       Perfect

   19. SPSpeaker17:20

       ... for me to draw out.

   20. AVArun Vinayak17:21

       Perfect. So the drawing out is easy for a cell, 'cause you're actually going from a high potential energy zone to a low potential energy zone.

   21. SPSpeaker17:27

       Yeah.

   22. AVArun Vinayak17:27

       So you're relaxing the cell. So when you're driving the vehicle, you're actually relaxing the cell.

   23. SPSpeaker17:31

       Yeah.

   24. AVArun Vinayak17:31

       So you can hardly damage the cell while driving.

   25. SPSpeaker17:34

       Mm.

   26. AVArun Vinayak17:34

       Right? But charging, where you're sort of s- stressing the cell out-

   27. SPSpeaker17:37

       Mm

   28. AVArun Vinayak17:37

       ... uh, the, the other side reaction that you're talking about, that's what really affects the cell life.

   29. SPSpeaker17:42

       Okay.

   30. AVArun Vinayak17:42

       Right? Now, you can do it, and doing that basically means you are in-- When you go cathode, anode, when you charge a cell, you have lithium ions that go from the cathode, swim across, and the anode absorbs them and stores them.
10. 19:55 – 26:47

    How exponent solves fast charging

    1. SPSpeaker19:55

       Understood. So how does Exponent solve these problems?

    2. AVArun Vinayak19:58

       Yeah. So, so we have, uh-- because we build full stack, um, and, and compare it to, let's say, an open source protocol, where today charger and batteries will be by two different people. Uh, the charger is blindly dumping energy on the battery, right? This is called CCCV, just constant current, constant voltage-

    3. SPSpeaker20:15

       Yeah

    4. AVArun Vinayak20:15

       ... charging, where because there is no deeper interaction between the battery and charger, um-

    5. SPSpeaker20:21

       Constant current for a while, and then con- constant voltage for a while.

    6. AVArun Vinayak20:24

       Exactly. So what you're doing is you're just betting on probability-

    7. SPSpeaker20:27

       Mm

    8. AVArun Vinayak20:27

       ... right? You're just bombarding the anode with the same amount of lithium ions, 'cause that's what the lab test tells you to do it. But the cell, every single cell is different. Every single battery is different. The battery on day zero is different. Two years later, the battery is different. But you're still bombarding it with the same amount of lithium ions.

    9. SPSpeaker20:43

       Sure.

    10. AVArun Vinayak20:43

        As-

    11. SPSpeaker20:43

        I've done some tests in the lab. I broadly know that this battery works like this. I don't need a closed-loop system. I have an open-loop system. I'll just run the same thing. Hopefully, it'll be... Probabilistically, it'll be the same. It'll behave similarly.

    12. AVArun Vinayak20:55

        Hundred percent, but it's not.

    13. SPSpeaker20:56

        Okay.

    14. AVArun Vinayak20:57

        Right? And the worst bit is a CV, which is a trickle charge state at the end, where you act-- the charger actually holds current voltage across the cell and lets the cell decide how much to eat. So actually, the cell, through osmosis, sort of, uh, slowly, the current will keep decaying, and sort of the cell saturates to a point, and then it switches off charging.

    15. SPSpeaker21:16

        Okay.

    16. AVArun Vinayak21:16

        But the cell is a fairly dumb being, right?

    17. SPSpeaker21:20

        Mm.

    18. AVArun Vinayak21:20

        So you'll actually... In the CCCV approach-

    19. SPSpeaker21:21

        I'm, I'm thinking of, like, lots of lithium minions-

    20. AVArun Vinayak21:24

        Yeah. [chuckles]

    21. SPSpeaker21:24

        ... walking from this side to that side. [chuckles]

    22. AVArun Vinayak21:26

        Yeah, like hungry lithium minions, right? Just walking around. Uh, it's like you let the cell decide how much to eat, it'll always overeat, and it'll always oversaturate, always kill itself. So the CCCV approach is a very probabilistic approach because you're depending on material science and a bunch of cell data, and it's like you said, it's open loop, which, which is a great way to look at it. Um, and so the industry norm is just go slow, because if you don't know much, you go slow, right? Like, that's the way to run. Of course, with this sort of blind approach, if you just amp up, dial up the current, you would just-- the amount of entropy would be so much that it would just destroy the cell very quickly.

    23. SPSpeaker22:01

        Understood.

    24. AVArun Vinayak22:01

        Right? So we're going from this to a deterministic method, uh, where we real-time understand what's happening with every cell. Uh, we are, we are able to predict very accurately if lithium crowding is starting to happen, which is a precursor to lithium plating. Uh, we are able to dynamically change current for every cell real-time. We're able to reverse current, if needed, uh, s- reduce current or switch off current-

    25. SPSpeaker22:23

        Okay

    26. AVArun Vinayak22:23

        ... whatever is needed. Uh, and this is enabled by, A, this accuracy with which we're sensing, the response time with which we're able to react, and of course, something called a, uh, virtual model, which is like, think of it as a digital twin, uh, for every cell that we store on our cloud. Uh, so every time we're charging, we're actually learning about a particular cell in a particular battery pack. So it's not just us categorizing a cell in a lab, it's actually then further managing every cell real time through a closed-loop function in the field.

    27. SPSpeaker22:53

        Nice. So, uh, so, so you're-- firstly, you're converting that open-loop charging to a closed-loop charging?

    28. AVArun Vinayak22:58

        Yeah.

    29. SPSpeaker22:58

        Uh, there's, uh-- you're sensing very fast, you're responding very fast, and the, the effect is the cha- uh, the, the, the closed-loop system is changing the current that's going into the charging at any point.

    30. AVArun Vinayak23:10

        Yeah.
11. 26:47 – 31:24

    Economics & making EVs more accessible

    1. SPSpeaker26:47

       I heard your colleague say that you talk a lot about engineering without economics is just a science project.

    2. AVArun Vinayak26:52

       Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker26:53

       So now we've come to the engineering part. We heard the engineering part.

    4. AVArun Vinayak26:55

       Yeah.

    5. SPSpeaker26:56

       Can you just elaborate on this philosophy, but also talk to us, too, about the economics of this?

    6. AVArun Vinayak27:03

       Yeah, I mean, um... Yeah, I, I think it's, it's, uh, it, it makes no sense to just-- at least personally, it, it, it's not exciting to build lab prototypes, right? If you have to actually meaningfully change the world, you have to build crazy tech that actually disrupts performance, disrupts pricing, uh, disrupts accessibility, so everyone can have better tech in their hands. Let's look at any technology, right? It disrupts not because it's cool, because it actually becomes accessible-

    7. SPSpeaker27:36

       Mm

    8. AVArun Vinayak27:36

       ... right, to everyone, like cell phones, laptops, whatever, right? E- everything we've seen in the last 30 years, 40 years. Similarly with EVs, it's not just about building cool EVs. I think we just wanna make EVs accessible to everyone, and so it's always engineering, yes, but then engineering plus economics, uh, has to flow. So all our engineering decisions are linked to economics, right?

    9. SPSpeaker27:54

       Mm.

    10. AVArun Vinayak27:55

        Um, for example, this whole HVAC thing we spoke about. Uh, the reason we're able-- the reason we-- It's much harder from engineering perspective to do this, uh, but it's the only way to make economics work in India. Uh, if you want to deliver rapid charging tech to a three-wheeler in India, uh, you have to do this, else the three-wheeler will just become so expensive that no one would be able to own it. At the same time, the three-wheeler does need rapid charging for them to be able to earn as much money as they want. Uh, so need-- They need the performance, but they can't afford the tech in a conventional manner, so you then have to rethink your engineering to make it accessible.

    11. SPSpeaker28:29

        I get what you're saying. From a very basic point of view, for a three-wheeler EV or a, or a Tata ACE EV or a truck EV-

    12. AVArun Vinayak28:38

        Even a bus, right? Yeah.

    13. SPSpeaker28:38

        Even a bus EV, logically, it makes a lot of sense that batteries are cheaper than petrol, um, because you can say battery per kilometer or unit cost per kilometer here, and there you have the mileage-

    14. AVArun Vinayak28:53

        Yeah

    15. SPSpeaker28:53

        ... and you can compare that. But if your commercial vehicle is down for two hours a day-

    16. AVArun Vinayak28:57

        Yeah

    17. SPSpeaker28:57

        ... and you are sitting next to it, waiting for it to charge, then you've lost two hours of your working time.

    18. AVArun Vinayak29:02

        Yes.

    19. SPSpeaker29:03

        Um, so if you factor that calculation in, then it, it doesn't make that much sense. But if you add 15-minute charging or 10-minute charging-

    20. AVArun Vinayak29:11

        Yeah

    21. SPSpeaker29:12

        ... uh, then that suddenly becomes a much better proposition. Is that the core of the argument?

    22. AVArun Vinayak29:16

        Absolutely. And, uh, it's not about just time, uh, and a pure just calculating two hours of downtime. Uh, it's, it's the freedom to run operations-

    23. SPSpeaker29:26

        Mm. Yeah

    24. AVArun Vinayak29:26

        ... right, which is sort of priceless, right? So today, if you look at within the city, uh, when you book a cab-

    25. SPSpeaker29:32

        Yeah

    26. AVArun Vinayak29:32

        ... uh, you, you don't know where the cab is. The cab driver doesn't know where the next pickup or drop is, right?

    27. SPSpeaker29:37

        Mm.

    28. AVArun Vinayak29:37

        Um, uh, so very few operations and logistics are fixed route, fixed time.

    29. SPSpeaker29:43

        Yeah.

    30. AVArun Vinayak29:43

        In India, as well, the most, most operation, most logistics in India is very ad hoc, uh, right?
12. 31:24 – 33:30

    Where is Exponent Energy now: team, progress, investors

    1. SPSpeaker31:24

       this. What is the size you're at now?

    2. AVArun Vinayak31:27

       We're at, like, number of employees-wise?

    3. SPSpeaker31:29

       Number of, uh, chargers on-

    4. AVArun Vinayak31:31

       Stations. Yeah, okay. So we are-- We're a two hundred member team now. We have one fifty chargers on the ground. We have over two thousand plus vehicles on the ground as part of our first pilot. Uh, and these are all three-wheelers where we tested our technology, sort of refined it, perfected it. Um, we're now expanding. This is in just-

    5. SPSpeaker31:47

       So now-

    6. AVArun Vinayak31:48

       One and a half cities

    7. SPSpeaker31:48

       ... i- i- in Bangalore, which I'm familiar with, there'll be, what? Like, one hundred and fifty, two hundred e-pumps?

    8. AVArun Vinayak31:53

       So one hundred, one fifty pumps across two cities, so in Bangalore, we'll probably see sixty, sixty-five e-pumps now.

    9. SPSpeaker31:57

       Sixty-five e-pumps. Nice. That's actually a lot to-

    10. AVArun Vinayak32:01

        Yeah

    11. SPSpeaker32:01

        ... from a commercial vehicle point of view. I, I'm guessing there'll be fewer CNG pumps.

    12. AVArun Vinayak32:05

        Yeah, actually, in Bangalore, there's only sixty LPG stations. We have some eighty, ninety CNG stations, so we're almost in the same ballpark.

    13. SPSpeaker32:10

        Same ballpark.

    14. AVArun Vinayak32:11

        And we plan to get to one fifty e-, uh, charging stations in Bangalore itself soon. Like, all of Bangalore, all brands, all types of fuels put together, ICE fuels put together, there are only, like, three hundred to four hundred petrol stations-

    15. SPSpeaker32:24

        Okay

    16. AVArun Vinayak32:24

        ... and CNG stations.

    17. SPSpeaker32:25

        Very interesting. So that, that penetration is actually a lot.

    18. AVArun Vinayak32:27

        Yeah.

    19. SPSpeaker32:28

        Um, you also have some amazing investors. You've raised a good amount of money. So do you want to share a little bit about that?

    20. AVArun Vinayak32:35

        Yeah. We've raised, uh, forty-four million dollars to date, uh, from a bunch of investors across a few rounds. Starting from early-stage investors like, uh, Eones, Three One Four, Advantage, uh, who sort of led the early rounds, uh, back when there wasn't really any tech to talk about, or just all a paper plan. So bet on us through the rounds. Um, we had Lightspeed invest in us when this technology was, well, maybe just a concept, and have sort of doubled down with us every round since then. Uh, we recently had Eight Roads and TDK. Well, I say recent, but it's been a year, year and a half plus, um, who also led our Series B. Uh, Eight Roads is, um, from, from the, from the Fidelity Group, and TDK is a global investor.

    21. SPSpeaker33:22

        Mm.

    22. AVArun Vinayak33:22

        It's a global company, of course, uh, from Japan. So we've-

    23. SPSpeaker33:25

        I saw your, uh, Series B announcement video.

    24. AVArun Vinayak33:29

        Right. From horses

13. 33:30 – 34:40

    Exponent’s Series B announcement video

    1. AVArun Vinayak33:31

       [horse neighing] to bikes [motorbike revving] to cars [car passing by] and to cabs. [upbeat music] Mobility has always been about freedom and accessibility. With every generation, it's gotten faster and more affordable, helping more people go further. So why should EVs be any different? Sure, they drive faster, [motorbike revving] but they suffer from slow charging that completely kills freedom and holds them back. [upbeat music] Kinda like horses. [horse neighing]

    2. SPSpeaker34:01

       [chuckles] Really cool.

    3. AVArun Vinayak34:02

       Oh, thanks. We have... [chuckles] Yeah, we have a B2C brand team in a B2B company, so [chuckles] they do some stuff.

    4. SPSpeaker34:07

       [laughing] I saw that you had a horse come into your-

    5. AVArun Vinayak34:10

       Yeah, yeah

    6. SPSpeaker34:11

       ... video as a-

    7. AVArun Vinayak34:12

       We actually wanted to put a real horse, but, uh, there were some, uh-- Apparently, the-- You can't shoot animals in a, in a, in, uh, without all the approvals.

    8. SPSpeaker34:22

       Okay.

    9. AVArun Vinayak34:22

       So it was a quite a fun experience shooting it.

    10. SPSpeaker34:24

        Okay. Um, [clears throat] this is great. Uh, I want to go back a little bit, um, but just to cover all the finer nuances here. Um, I think, uh, we spoke about battery chemistry, we spoke about the engineering limits,

14. 34:40 – 37:45

    Lithium-Ion Tech & how metrics differ by Industry

    1. SPSpeaker34:40

       we spoke about BMS. Um, I have a question here, which is mainly from my understanding: What is the difference between batteries for phones, laptops, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers, and trucks? Like, is there a big difference? Is it just a scale thing?

    2. AVArun Vinayak34:55

       Uh, huge, actually. I think that's a great question. So i- i-- It comes down to what you... Sure, at the end of the day, it's, it's maybe lithium-ion cells. In a simplistic fashion, you can say it's all-- core technology remains the same. You have cathode, uh, cathode, anode, and electrolyte. But what you're building towards, the metrics you care about, are fundamentally very different. The product attributes you want from all these categories are very different. Um, for example, phones and laptops, you care about energy density. So the sort of innovation happening there is more on the material science to give you more hours with a lighter battery and a thinner battery. So volumetric density, weight density matters a lot.

    3. SPSpeaker35:36

       Mm.

    4. AVArun Vinayak35:36

       You don't care about charge time as much, 'cause you are able to charge it from any socket to-- It's-- You're able to carry the phone with you. So you are taking your phone to energy, as against needing the energy to come to the phone. Um, you don't care about life as much. Your average consumer electronic product is owned for two years, three years. Um, so you don't really care about life beyond that. Um, if you go to passenger cars or two-wheelers, again, energy density matters a little bit more than commercial vehicles, but less than consumer electronics. Um, you care about charge time, again, you don't care about life as much. Uh, but if you go to commercial vehicles, you don't care about volumetric or weight density as much. You, you really want a battery that lasts eight years, ten years, fifteen years. 'Cause for commercial vehicles, it's an asset, the residual value, the life of it really matters. You care a- about charge time a lot.

    5. SPSpeaker36:23

       Mm.

    6. AVArun Vinayak36:24

       Um, consumers like you and I probably park our vehicle at home and charge at home.

    7. SPSpeaker36:28

       Mm.

    8. AVArun Vinayak36:28

       Uh, so we think there's going to be a global dichotomy in charging, either-... but people who can charge at home, park at home, charge at home, will always do that, which is great. It's the cheapest and the best way to do it. But everyone else will want ultra-fast charging. They'll want sub 10 minutes. There's no world where you go to a public spot every day and wait for an hour, we think. It's sort of like e-commerce, where, you know, there's, uh, same-day delivery is now dead, right? Either you're okay for a cheap three-day delivery or you want an ultra-fast 15-minute delivery. Uh, we think similarly with energy, either you're okay to wait at home every day, uh, but we think a bulk of people will want that ultra-fast charging. That's the fundamental-

    9. SPSpeaker37:06

       Nice.

    10. AVArun Vinayak37:07

        cemos.

    11. SPSpeaker37:07

        Thank you so much. Um, okay, uh, so, uh, I, I think you're giving us a factory tour later-

    12. AVArun Vinayak37:14

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker37:15

        ... so we'll learn a little bit more later. Uh, let's move back now. Uh, y- you're a founding member of Ather-

    14. AVArun Vinayak37:21

        Yeah

    15. SPSpeaker37:21

        ... which is amazing. Uh, and I want to hear a little bit about that, but let's rewind to that, uh, story where you're a JEE student and you're just getting into IIT. So, um, [chuckles] after having built a car in your 11th and 12th, uh, how were your years at IIT like, and, uh, how did you land up in Ather?

    16. AVArun Vinayak37:41

        Yeah, so I, I think that, uh... I think, I think my parents conned me a little

15. 37:45 – 40:20

    Arun’s Life at IIT Madras and Raftaar Formula Racing

    1. AVArun Vinayak37:45

       bit. They said, "Oh, if you want to keep building this car, you should study and get into IIT." So, uh, I was, uh, I extremely pivoted hard into sort of working hard to crack the JEE, uh, which worked out well. Uh, got into Madras for mechanical. I was sure, like, I would do only mechanical engineering, because I will build vehicles. [chuckles] That was a very simplistic thought process. But then, uh, realized IIT is so academic, right? Got in, and the first year was a complete shock-

    2. SPSpeaker38:13

       Yeah

    3. AVArun Vinayak38:13

       ... and they were teaching us quantum mechanics and-

    4. SPSpeaker38:15

       Oh, my God!

    5. AVArun Vinayak38:16

       Yeah, and I didn't understand anything. And, uh, and I was sort of-

    6. SPSpeaker38:20

       I feel like Schrödinger equation is still-

    7. AVArun Vinayak38:22

       [laughing]

    8. SPSpeaker38:22

       ... one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

    9. AVArun Vinayak38:24

       It's traumatic, man. [laughing]

    10. SPSpeaker38:26

        Yeah.

    11. AVArun Vinayak38:26

        So, so I mean, I, I can be academic if I want to, but, like, I was real rebelled then. I said, "This isn't like..." I wanted to build stuff. Uh, and that's when this beautiful thing happened, where we discovered CFI, right?

    12. SPSpeaker38:38

        Mm.

    13. AVArun Vinayak38:38

        I think it's the best thing that's happened to me. Um, the best thing that happened to a lot of us who are now founders in deep tech.

    14. SPSpeaker38:44

        Mm.

    15. AVArun Vinayak38:44

        Um, it was this safe space for all of us, where there were just students everywhere building cool stuff. There was no objective of success. It was just objective of building.

    16. SPSpeaker38:53

        Mm.

    17. AVArun Vinayak38:53

        Um, there was... I- it was not crazy amount of money, but back then, as a student, it was a lot of money. It was, like, 80,000 bucks, one lakh to build a project was, was, was amazing.

    18. SPSpeaker39:03

        Mm.

    19. AVArun Vinayak39:03

        Right? You didn't even know how to plan a project that required one lakh, right? So you were still thinking 8,000 rupees, 10,000 rupees to build a prototype. So that completely changed our mindset in how do you prototype, how do you build? And we make this... Pretty much every project out of CFI is a failure technically, but I think you will see so many cool success stories that have come out of the same, uh, team built there.

    20. SPSpeaker39:26

        Yeah. So, uh, the ones that are popular now is, of course, Ather, Exponent, um, HyperVerge, maybe. A bunch of companies which came around in that, uh, which... where the students started working in CFI around the 2010 to 2014, '15 period. It's been 10 years, so they're-

    21. AVArun Vinayak39:42

        Yeah

    22. SPSpeaker39:42

        ... very visible now.

    23. AVArun Vinayak39:43

        Yeah, a- absolutely. And I think what, what, uh, IIT has done with, with CFI, and then back it up with now the research park and the incubation facility. So it's like this nice graduation path for you to get into college, get messy in smaller projects in CFI, start thinking startups, start incubating. I think that the whole ecosystem is so good, and it's probably the only place that's consistently churning out deep tech companies, and yeah, it's-

    24. SPSpeaker40:08

        Yeah, best place to build.

    25. AVArun Vinayak40:09

        Best Place To Build. [chuckles]

    26. SPSpeaker40:10

        A- at least for Bob the Builder kind of people- [chuckles]

    27. AVArun Vinayak40:12

        Yeah

    28. SPSpeaker40:12

        ... who need to build- [chuckles]

    29. AVArun Vinayak40:14

        Yeah

    30. SPSpeaker40:14

        ... compulsively.
16. 40:20 – 42:07

    Scaling EV Infrastructure in India

    1. AVArun Vinayak40:20

       uh... I think CFI was also a place where I met Swapnil, uh, who, who was co-founder at, at Ather. Uh, uh, we-- so, like, a bunch of guys, bunch of guys like Anand. So many people who are at Ather/Exponent are all original team members of the Raftaar team.

    2. SPSpeaker40:35

       Mm.

    3. AVArun Vinayak40:35

       Uh-

    4. SPSpeaker40:36

       Raftaar is the-

    5. AVArun Vinayak40:36

       Team Raftaar, yeah. So... [laughing]

    6. SPSpeaker40:39

       Raftaar is the, uh, racing team.

    7. AVArun Vinayak40:41

       Yeah, Raftaar-

    8. SPSpeaker40:41

       Student racing team

    9. AVArun Vinayak40:42

       ... Raftaar is a student racing team from IITM. Uh, and, uh, so we used to build these open-wheeled race cars, super fast race cars, actually, uh, and compete globally in Formula 1 tracks. Um, and, uh, we used to, uh, we... Uh, 2010 was the first time we went. Uh, that was the first time we represented IIT Madras. Uh, we went to Silverstone, UK, and we got our-

    10. SPSpeaker41:04

        Silverstone!

    11. AVArun Vinayak41:04

        ... asses whooped. Sorry, can I say that, like?

    12. SPSpeaker41:06

        Yeah, you can say, "Asses whooped."

    13. AVArun Vinayak41:08

        Okay. [chuckles]

    14. SPSpeaker41:09

        But Silverstone- [chuckles]

    15. AVArun Vinayak41:10

        Yeah, yeah

    16. SPSpeaker41:11

        ... it's a very, very-

    17. AVArun Vinayak41:12

        The Holy Grail of racing.

    18. SPSpeaker41:13

        Yeah.

    19. AVArun Vinayak41:13

        Yeah. Uh, but it was... S- See, like, honestly, we went there, uh, with, "Oh, we are from IIT Madras. We're smart kids and all," right? And we went there, and, like, tier two, tier three colleges there were whooping us. Uh, right, uh, they just knew how to build, right? Uh, maybe they didn't know the Schrödinger equation as much, but they knew how to build, and that was like this solid wake-up call. I think both Swapnil and I took that very personally back then.

    20. SPSpeaker41:37

        Yeah.

    21. AVArun Vinayak41:37

        Then we said, "Shit, man, India doesn't build," right? And it was all IT people everywhere, and there was just software, software, software. Uh, the biggest, the smartest people in industry back then were getting into consultancies and software companies and, uh, FMCG and banking.

    22. SPSpeaker41:54

        Still, by the way.

    23. AVArun Vinayak41:54

        Still... No, I think it's changing. I think it's changing. Uh, but so it was a, it was this very- It was a second switch. I think switch one was, I will change mobility in '16. Switch two was at, at that 20... I remember that moment because it was

17. 42:07 – 45:15

    Being CPO at Ather and starting Exponent

    1. AVArun Vinayak42:07

       like, it was a wake-up call to say we should build hard, some product in India. That was the... I think, the takeaway from that. We didn't know what product. We didn't-- For me, it was, it had to be in mobility, 'cause that was something that was... And it was just, s- I feel so lucky that Ather happened, uh, I think.

    2. SPSpeaker42:25

       So Swapnil, you, and Tarun, uh, were, uh, were at, were at the same time, right? So the, I think Ather started in 2013, '14 period.

    3. AVArun Vinayak42:33

       Yeah.... We all had jobs right out of college, and so we're all doing jobs, but secretly [chuckles] figuring out how do, how do you make this happen? Uh, we all got our placement jobs, right? And, uh, we just did it-- I, I think I did it to just to see, hey, what does a job look like, right? And we quickly, within, like, three months, realized, "Man, I wanna go back to building." Uh, Ather also had its journey, where it started off as a battery swap/battery energy company. At some point in time, obviously, it became very clear that the vehicle had to be built, and that was when I was like, "Bro, I have to be part of that. I wanna build a vehicle." Uh, and, uh, yeah, it was out of- [chuckles]

    4. SPSpeaker43:05

       With real parts. [chuckles] Not second-hand parts.

    5. AVArun Vinayak43:08

       With real parts this time, which was its own journey by [chuckles] itself.

    6. SPSpeaker43:12

       Fantastic. Uh, so, of course, you headed, uh, product at Ather till 2020?

    7. AVArun Vinayak43:17

       Yeah.

    8. SPSpeaker43:17

       Correct. And then you took the decision to leave and start Exponent. Um, I'm, I'm-- I mean, I'm not complaining, but I'm curious, why did you leave? Uh, what were the trigger points?

    9. AVArun Vinayak43:31

       Um, see, I, I, I think, uh, the larger ecosystem started moving, right? Uh, which is, I think when we started Ather, people didn't believe that EVs could be faster, could be better. By 2013, 2014, people thought EVs meant vehicles-

    10. SPSpeaker43:49

        We had those 20 kilometer per hour top vehicles.

    11. AVArun Vinayak43:50

        Exactly. There was just-

    12. SPSpeaker43:51

        Yeah

    13. AVArun Vinayak43:52

        ... cheap Chinese vehicles, uh, cars were slow. They were all ugly vehicles, right?

    14. SPSpeaker43:56

        Yeah.

    15. AVArun Vinayak43:56

        Uh, and they were not even considered real vehicles. And I think we were able to maybe pioneer the shift. And so the product philosophy at Ather was, "We will build the best scooter, period. It happens to be electric," right? And we achieved that. I think we were-- Maybe I-- we will, I will-- we will take, uh, I still say "we," but, uh, from Ather, but we, we will take credit, uh, that we pioneered this, the narrative that EVs are faster, better, sexier vehicles. We launched-- I think Ather is still considered one of the best products, EV products on Indian roads across categories. Um, it's beating bikes, it's beating cars in a lot of segments. Uh, so I think we did that phase one job of changing India's narrative.

    16. SPSpeaker44:34

        Mm-hmm.

    17. AVArun Vinayak44:35

        Uh, the government obviously got behind it for, uh, multiple reasons, like energy resilience.

    18. SPSpeaker44:38

        Yeah.

    19. AVArun Vinayak44:39

        Um, so I think fast-forward to 2020, a lot of people wanted to go electric, but there were no fundamental building blocks, right?

    20. SPSpeaker44:47

        Mm.

    21. AVArun Vinayak44:47

        So on a personal mission, Ather, we could build more two-wheel... Uh, from, from a personal mission, Ather, I could design more two-wheelers or we could fundamentally build the next set of building blocks, uh, to make all of India go electric ASAP.

    22. SPSpeaker45:00

        Mm.

    23. AVArun Vinayak45:00

        Right? Um, and it was very clear to me the fil- fundamental building blocks needed were the energy building blocks. 'Cause by 2020, OEMs were now in a position to buy a piece of one-- multiple piece of technology, more technology easily available.

18. 45:15 – 46:59

    Inside the Factory: Building the World’s Fastest Chargers

    1. AVArun Vinayak45:15

       Of course, asset technology, people know.

    2. SPSpeaker45:17

       Yeah.

    3. AVArun Vinayak45:17

       So people were able to buy these pieces and do their thing, like large OEMs are able to do their thing.

    4. SPSpeaker45:21

       I get what you're saying. You're saying that in the general EV energy space, there are a lot of problems. Uh, a, uh-- if you are building a company which is building vehicles and you've come this far, you've sort of committed to building more and more vehicles. So if you want to tackle some other problem, you'll have to basically start from scratch.

    5. AVArun Vinayak45:38

       Yeah, because, because now you're building an energy company. Uh, and Ather, fundamentally, the journey at Ather was gonna be build more and more two-wheelers, and there was a fan-- there's a fantastic team already built up there. I think one of the job as founders is to make yourself obsolete. So there's a fantastic product team building great products, building on the platforms that we had already launched. By 2020, we had already launched Gen Two. Uh, so I, I felt like a large portion of my job was done. There's a lot, lot, lot of the focus there was on business scale-up and en- engineering, further engineering, supply chain, et cetera, which there were other people k- managing. So, so on a personal basis, was really excited about building this platform. And the first attempt was to say, "Hey, maybe we should build this within Ather", right? Uh, because the objective was not to leave Ather, the objective was to build a platform, right? Um, and we even went around speaking to other OEMs, and there was real interest, uh, for other OEMs to adopt a platform. But then there were concerns that, oh, Ather's also a vehicle manufacturer, so you're sort of a competitor.

    6. SPSpeaker46:33

       Yeah.

    7. AVArun Vinayak46:33

       Uh, then over time, the biggest realization that flipped my decision was, this is a commercial vehicle problem and not a two-wheeler or a passenger car problem.

    8. SPSpeaker46:41

       Correct.

    9. AVArun Vinayak46:42

       Right?

    10. SPSpeaker46:42

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AVArun Vinayak46:42

        And so now you're going from two-wheeler company to platform company, to platform for commercial vehicle. Now, you're so far away from Ather's scope. So then doing this within Ather would also be bad for Ather-

    12. SPSpeaker46:52

        Yeah

    13. AVArun Vinayak46:52

        ... would also be bad for this idea.

    14. SPSpeaker46:53

        Yeah.

    15. AVArun Vinayak46:54

        Uh, so then you need fundamental fresh eyes, fresh talent, fresh capital. So I think that's where we started.

    16. SPSpeaker46:58

        Fantastic.

19. 46:59 – 51:00

    Building in India. Twice.

    1. SPSpeaker46:59

       Can I just note that building in India, [chuckles] make in India-

    2. AVArun Vinayak47:03

       Yeah

    3. SPSpeaker47:03

       ... is hard the first time?

    4. AVArun Vinayak47:04

       Yeah.

    5. SPSpeaker47:05

       And you've chosen to do this twice.

    6. AVArun Vinayak47:07

       Yeah. Sometimes I, I ask myself why. [laughing] But those times are maybe 5% of the times. 95% of the time, we're happy. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, building in India is hard, but if you've cracked it-

    7. SPSpeaker47:23

       Mm.

    8. AVArun Vinayak47:23

       Uh, and I think the, the time-

    9. SPSpeaker47:27

       Is it easier the second time?

    10. AVArun Vinayak47:28

        It is much easier the second time.

    11. SPSpeaker47:30

        Because you sort of have a sense of what will be the issues, what will be the-

    12. AVArun Vinayak47:32

        Yeah

    13. SPSpeaker47:33

        ... roadblocks.

    14. AVArun Vinayak47:34

        Like, we just launched our product within two and a half years, right?

    15. SPSpeaker47:38

        Yeah.

    16. AVArun Vinayak47:38

        With-- And there's no global benchmark for the product we built.

    17. SPSpeaker47:41

        Yeah.

    18. AVArun Vinayak47:41

        So I think that's actually the secret also. Once you learn how to build in India, that becomes your fundamental moat. So you obviously wanna go build the second time around.

    19. SPSpeaker47:49

        Yeah.

    20. AVArun Vinayak47:49

        Um, but this time around, because we're building a platform company, there are other realities in the business which are, which are much harder. Uh, building the tech, in some sense, is our strength. Um-

    21. SPSpeaker47:59

        Mm.

    22. AVArun Vinayak48:00

        Because now we're not just building a product that we can just go sell it to a B2C customer. We're fundamentally building a platform that enables OEMs in the commercial vehicle space, and these are very hard partners and very hard markets to crack.

    23. SPSpeaker48:12

        Yeah.

    24. AVArun Vinayak48:12

        Um, I tell-- I joke that Exponent is actually in this cusp of energy, automotive, [chuckles] and, and financing, which is very important for commercial vehicles. So we're in three big boy segments-

    25. SPSpeaker48:25

        Yeah

    26. AVArun Vinayak48:25

        ... uh, sort of coordinating in between. Uh-

    27. SPSpeaker48:28

        Yeah, but you're also like a linchpin because your technology makes everything move faster.

    28. AVArun Vinayak48:32

        Yes. So when it works, it-

    29. SPSpeaker48:34

        Yeah

    30. AVArun Vinayak48:34

        ... really works.
20. 51:00 – 51:34

    The Future of Rapid Charging & Global Expansion

    1. AVArun Vinayak51:00

       the fastest times, so Anand and then me. Uh, Anand's also part of Exponent. Uh, and we were both the drivers.

    2. SPSpeaker51:07

       How fast do those vehicles go?

    3. AVArun Vinayak51:10

       Uh, so the acceleration of some of these vehicles, so zero to 100 times for these vehicles are the fastest in the world. So these vehicles have zero to 100 times faster than Formula 1 and faster than Teslas, uh, because there's no weight limit. Uh, uh, and there's no lower weight limit, so you can make these vehicles super light and, uh, they actually have the world record for the fastest acceleration.

    4. SPSpeaker51:32

       Nice. Um, of

21. 51:34 – 56:20

    Mentoring CFI students and Hiring from CFI

    1. SPSpeaker51:34

       course, um, do you, do you go back to, um, uh, CFI often? Do you talk to the Raftaar team now?

    2. AVArun Vinayak51:40

       A lot, actually. I think, uh, maybe it's come down a little bit, maybe over the last couple of years, but I think we used to have them over here. Uh, we still have from f- the former student community active. Actually, most of our hiring is from the former student community.

    3. SPSpeaker51:54

       Mm.

    4. AVArun Vinayak51:54

       Um, so we still-

    5. SPSpeaker51:56

       I was just reading and I'm thinking that Raftaar is also now an EV car. They're competing in the EV competition.

    6. AVArun Vinayak52:00

       Yes. It- it's actually an EV, uh, competition, right?

    7. SPSpeaker52:03

       Damn, cool! Uh-

    8. AVArun Vinayak52:04

       I think Ather and Exponent are both sponsors/partners, and I think everyone's... Like, it's, it's, it's, imp- uh, it's great that they've done the shift as well.

    9. SPSpeaker52:13

       Damn cool. I'm, I'm thinking very, uh, very selfishly that for you, it's also a talent pipeline.

    10. AVArun Vinayak52:19

        Yeah. [laughing]

    11. SPSpeaker52:22

        [laughing]

    12. AVArun Vinayak52:22

        We're very openly selfish about this. [laughing]

    13. SPSpeaker52:24

        [chuckles] Mm. Great! So we learned a lot about your, uh, about your engineering life and how you think about work and business. Um, I, I was talking on Twitter for this, uh, prep, and I noticed that, um, you, you tweet about EV battery Make in India from the work side, but you also tweet a lot about Bangalore-

    14. AVArun Vinayak52:45

        Yeah

    15. SPSpeaker52:45

        ... and about cricket.

    16. AVArun Vinayak52:47

        Yeah.

    17. SPSpeaker52:47

        Um, so [chuckles] how happy are you that RCB won?-

    18. AVArun Vinayak52:51

        Oh, so much

    19. SPSpeaker52:52

        Finally. [chuckles]

    20. AVArun Vinayak52:52

        I'm, I'm a Bangalore boy, been here all my life. Uh, so apart from college. But yeah, just [chuckles] so great that they won. I always pretend like I'm too cool for the IPL. Uh, because I'm still like a sort of a test match purist, but, uh, but Bangalore is Bangalore and RCB is RCB, so. [chuckles]

    21. SPSpeaker53:09

        Yeah. You've been here, uh, from, uh, you were, uh, '91, right?

    22. AVArun Vinayak53:13

        Since I was born, yes.

    23. SPSpeaker53:14

        Since you were born. So, um, you've seen the city change?

    24. AVArun Vinayak53:19

        Yeah, so much. Yeah, so much.

    25. SPSpeaker53:21

        Um, do you feel like, um, it's changed too fast? It's changed for the better? I mean, pe- people have such different opinions. Some people are really, um... like, they, they, the old Bangaloreans, they're quite upset about how fast everything has moved and-

    26. AVArun Vinayak53:36

        Yeah. See, I, I think, I think that's a- that's not a great way to look at it. Uh, I think that in most cities, you always have people who cling on to the past. Um, and obviously, as a founder, as an optimist, future optimist-

    27. SPSpeaker53:51

        Mm-hmm

    28. AVArun Vinayak53:52

        ... uh, that's a terrible way to look at it. Uh, I think there are issues in the city. Uh, the growth is un- the rate at which we've grown has created a lot of issues.

    29. SPSpeaker54:02

        Mm.

    30. AVArun Vinayak54:03

        I-
22. 56:20 – 58:14

    Cricket & Startup Life

    1. AVArun Vinayak56:20

       seeing all these other-

    2. SPSpeaker56:21

       Yeah

    3. AVArun Vinayak56:22

       ... guys building such cooler vehicles. I think that competition [chuckles] of building better vehicles just triggered us to-

    4. SPSpeaker56:29

       Maybe sometimes also what happens is, when you see someone else doing something which you thought, "Yeah, I can also do this. I mean, what do they have special that-

    5. AVArun Vinayak56:36

       Yeah

    6. SPSpeaker56:36

       ... they can-- they get to do this, and I don't?"

    7. AVArun Vinayak56:38

       Yeah, I think, I think the global exposure, uh, exposure just helped us, uh, just want to build better.

    8. SPSpeaker56:46

       Hmm. Well, um, I mean, uh, well, maybe we can go on the factory tour, but last question before we leave. Uh, what an exciting Test match series, right?

    9. AVArun Vinayak56:57

       Oh, yeah, totally. [laughs] Uh, I, I also, I also tweet on MotoGP sometimes, but, uh, I, I love racing. I love, uh... But I still think Test matches are, uh, more exciting than races. It's like this, uh, kind of like-

    10. SPSpeaker57:11

        Do you, do you think that startup life is like that? There are, like, these long periods of slog, and then these very exciting, short, five days, 15 days, 30 days.

    11. AVArun Vinayak57:22

        Uh, yeah. Like, I think Test match is like life, like startup life. Like, I think every session, you have win, loss, you have win, loss, but the game is never-

    12. SPSpeaker57:31

        Mm

    13. AVArun Vinayak57:31

        ... lost until the final day. Uh, so I think there's a lot of up and down. It's like, it's like... Uh, at least a Test match, when I say it's like, it's like this i- this immovable force or un- unstoppable force and immovable object. Like, it's just clashing and this-

    14. SPSpeaker57:46

        Yeah

    15. AVArun Vinayak57:46

        ... sort of like war, right? And I think, uh, startup is... It's not like these micro battles, it's like this longer war that you have to win. So I think you will lose a lot of micro sessions, but you have to-- So I think, I think it's very similar to that, that one.

    16. SPSpeaker57:59

        Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, very grateful that we actually won that match.

    17. AVArun Vinayak58:04

        Oh, yeah. [laughs]

    18. SPSpeaker58:04

        Otherwise, the story would have ended up very differently. [laughs]

    19. AVArun Vinayak58:08

        It's easy to say all these quotes after we won. [chuckles]

    20. SPSpeaker58:09

        Once we won, yeah. Okay, great. Uh,

23. 58:14 – 1:09:49

    Exponent Energy Factory Tour

    1. SPSpeaker58:14

       maybe you can show us some stuff-

    2. AVArun Vinayak58:16

       Sure

    3. SPSpeaker58:16

       ... some part of your, uh, factory.

    4. AVArun Vinayak58:17

       Super. Yeah, let's do it.

    5. SPSpeaker58:19

       Okay, so you're showing this.

    6. AVArun Vinayak58:21

       Yeah, so this is actually our, uh, Induct ePump. Uh, one of the realities in India is that people forget to put the connector back after, [chuckles] after they charge. Uh, so it's a global problem, it's also India problem. Also, we realize people pa-- unlike two-wheelers, people park wrong, right? They, they, they, they park-

    7. SPSpeaker58:43

       They park as they can.

    8. AVArun Vinayak58:43

       They park as much... with as much accuracy as you can, and different vehicles are different width, the connectors are in different location.

    9. SPSpeaker58:48

       The entryway is different.

    10. AVArun Vinayak58:50

        Entryway is different. Uh, and also because we do rapid charging, our cables are much bigger. They have to be. And we also have the fluid cables, like we said. So we decided to have this connector management system, which takes the weight off, uh, the driver, right? And now you can basically go anywhere you want, and so the system follows. You can go left, you can go-

    11. SPSpeaker59:07

        Nice

    12. AVArun Vinayak59:07

        ... right, and, uh, you can charge down or up. And basically, at the end of it, you just, [connector clicking] you connect it, you lock it, and then just let it go, and system sort of goes back. So we sort of... Of course, there's also connectivity, there's CCTV cameras, there's the whole SIM-- charge management system. So this whole thing is managed remotely by our central team. Uh, but some of this stuff that is India-specific, rapid charging-specific, we had to rethink the entire system.

    13. SPSpeaker59:34

        Very interesting. Yeah.

    14. AVArun Vinayak59:42

        Some of this lab is still under construction. We just moved in here more recently. So this is where we let the engineers break everything. Our whole philosophy, our innovation, is break, believe, build. Um, so you gotta keep breaking your own stuff. So, uh, so these are systems... Uh, we just switched off because of the noise during recording, but... So basically, each of these system is an oven, right? So you basically have these, [machine clicking] these chargers that... [machine clicking] Right. So, you know, each of these systems have these battery packs. This is a battery pack that goes into, say, a three-wheeler, and there's an oven that moves between minus five, uh, minus 20 sometimes, all the way to 45, 50, 60. So we keep changing the temperature of this oven, and these things are then connected to our cyclers there. So, you know, they're-- the system's actually charging and discharging these batteries. So these-

    15. SPSpeaker1:00:38

        So you're basically simulating the fact that it is... You're discharging the battery?

    16. AVArun Vinayak1:00:43

        Yeah, we're both charging and... So we're doing 15-minute charging. So today, we've actually tested our battery for 3,000-plus cycles. So when you buy a battery in the field, uh, you- it takes four hours to charge and get, gets you 1,000 to 1,500 cycles. We've actually done 3,000 to 4,000 cycles worth of testing for each, for some of our battery packs. Uh, and each-... cycle is a fifteen-minute charge cycle, right? So we really-- so this allows us to build, uh, a lot of durability and endurance testing at a rapid pace. Um, because on the road, maybe I can get two, three cycles a day. Here, we get almost ten, twelve cycles a day. So we do something called an accelerated life cycle test. So we take the road data, which you probably drive a vehicle in four, five hours. We discharge the vehicle in four, five hours, battery in four, five hours. So we take all that current data, uh, we sort of have a statistical way to compress that, and we feed that within an hour. So we sort of s- discharge the battery within an hour and create a lot more accelerated stress on the battery.

    17. SPSpeaker1:01:34

        So in a day, you can do it, like, twenty times?

    18. AVArun Vinayak1:01:36

        Oh, yeah. We, we now do ten to eleven times, uh, a day on average. Yeah.

    19. SPSpeaker1:01:41

        So three thousand tests a day.

    20. AVArun Vinayak1:01:42

        Uh, practically, with power going off and on, so ten to eleven times a day.

    21. SPSpeaker1:01:46

        Okay, nice. Yeah. Three thousand cycles for a battery for a commercial vehicle is like ten years of life.

    22. AVArun Vinayak1:01:54

        Yeah, depends on how you charge. But, but most commercial vehicles charge twice a day.

    23. SPSpeaker1:01:58

        Mm.

    24. AVArun Vinayak1:01:58

        Uh, so, uh, I see the-- its our warranty is three thousand cycles. Our life is anybody four thousand to five thousand cycles. So yeah, it's anybody seven to ten years of life based on how you use it.

    25. SPSpeaker1:02:10

        Nice. Um, as we are walking through your factory, I realize, and you spoke about it before the, before the event also, that, uh, the, the philosophy of this particular facility is that the headquarters, the design office, the engineering office, and the factory are all together.

    26. AVArun Vinayak1:02:28

        Yeah. Yeah, that's actually fairly unique. I think, uh, one of the... What generally happens is people end up setting up the design, um, in the, in the city.

    27. SPSpeaker1:02:37

        Mm.

    28. AVArun Vinayak1:02:37

        Uh, then you have a testing slightly outside the city, and the manufacturing, that's way far out, out of the city. Uh-

    29. SPSpeaker1:02:43

        Because that's how costs of land and-

    30. AVArun Vinayak1:02:46

        Exactly, right. Uh, one of the hard, I mean, hard things for us is, I mean, for example, that's our bus systems, right? Those are bus batteries, vehicles with our batteries that get charged. So these batteries are super huge. They're almost half a room size. Uh, so now to build all of this stuff, we couldn't do it in the city. Um, so we sort of had to find a place that allows designers to come actually play around. We need large shared areas. Um, so Electronic City was the closest to the city, which has the promise of metro, [laughing] and that we're able to sort of, uh-

Episode duration: 1:09:49