- The company sees Singapore as a neutral country where many can collaborate amidst the rising geopolitical tensions.
- Battery cells developed under the A&S Power collaboration by Wardwizard have received AIS certifications
Having recently signed a long-term agreement with China-based A&S Power for Li-ion cell technology, Wardwizard Innovations’s team believes the move will enable it to ensure “good quality” electric vehicle battery cells.
Lakshman Gurazada, Director of Operations, Wardwizard Global, noted in a conversation with electronicsb2b that traceability and source of EV battery cells constitute the most critical aspects of an EV. “The move will ensure that we only give our end-consumers the best of battery packs,” he said.
The company will now use these cells to assemble battery packs for its electric two-wheelers (E2Ws). In the future, these might also fit the range of electric three-wheelers (E3Ws) it retails in India.
Data from the Vahan Portal of India indicates that Wardwizard has registered 3,202 high-speed E2Ws and E3Ws in India during the calendar year 2023 so far. Last year, it had registered only 314 EVs. As Vahan only registers high speed EVs, the company said it sold a total of 43,914 EVs (Slow Speed + High Speed) during 2022.
Earlier, the company was sourcing either the battery cells, or assembled batteries, from India-based vendors or China. Gurazada explained, “It was almost impossible to control the cost, quality, and performance of batteries we sourced via that route. This decision will give us better control over the EVs we retail in the short-, mid-, mid-and long-term. We will now be able to offer better qualities while bringing down the costs.”
He added that the company had to either control its bill of materials (BoM) cost, tighten checks on its sourcing process, or “vertically integrate cell manufacturing to ensure quality.
“Our in-house business analysis showed that vertical integration of key technologies, including cell innovation and manufacturing, to be much more beneficial for us than the other route,” Gurazada said.
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The company estimates that it will be consuming anywhere between one to two GWs of energy in the coming times. Notably, the company had announced an investment of Rs 650 crore to set up an R&D centre and an assembly plant for the 1GWh cell production plant at its electric vehicle ancillary cluster in Gujarat.
According to Gurazada, the EV battery assembly line(s) being set up at the cluster will include equipment sourced on a “merit basis” from Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and more vendors of electronics manufacturing equipment.
The company says that the first batch of the battery cells and EV batteries developed due to its collaboration with A&S Power have received the BIS Certification. “We will start mass producing these battery packs in India soon,” he said.
Wardwizard might “eventually” look to deploy these battery packs into its range of E3Ws. The company is aiming to start assembling the first set of batteries by Q1 of the next financial at its cluster in Gujarat.
It is open to collaborating with more companies and academia to develop its research and development (R&D) capabilities. “It is a fast-evolving vertical, and international and national collaboration can help in stay ahead,” Gurazada said.
He added that it collaborates with Indian companies for over 90% of components in EVs. The reason to choose Singapore as its global R&D hub is that amidst the rising Geopolitical tensions, the country offers a point where companies from different geographies can collaborate at a neutral place.
“Singapore connects well to the Southeast Asia EV ecosystem, and our long-term plans for going global will be served best from here,” according to the company. It sees many Asian and African countries as its future markets.
Warwizard recently appointed Hero MotoCorp’s Sanjay Sablok, President of Operations, and Tejas A. Mehta, CFO for the Joy e-bike brand.
