Electric Vehicle (EV) start-up Cell Propulsion on Thursday inaugurated its pilot production plant in Bengaluru to manufacture, assemble, and test Li-ion battery packs.
The maximum capacity of this pilot plant is 500kW-hr per month. These battery packs will be installed in the eLCVs that they are manufacturing, the company said in a press release.
Founded by former ISRO engineers, Cell Propulsion focuses on the design and development of electric commercial vehicles (eCVs - eLCVs and eTrucks). They deploy these vehicles as part of a fully managed solution to seamlessly adopt eCVs by logistics and transportation companies.
The battery system for commercial vehicle application is a very different design than that of battery packs for passenger vehicles or light vehicles.
The company has employed design approaches to develop battery systems that will consider safety, thermal performance, structural loads, power delivery, and modularity. In addition, the battery management system designed by Cell Propulsion implements proprietary algorithms for state estimation of battery packs - typically for charge and health.
The company believes that the commissioning of the pilot line for producing automotive-grade (AIS-48 certified) battery packs is a major milestone in the journey to deploying class-leading eLCVs for their customers.
This launch comes after Cell Propulsion raised $2 million in June 2021 from a clutch of private equity investors, including Endiya Partners, GrowX Ventures, Huddle Accelerator and Micelio. Last September, the company had also raised $1 million in a pre-series A round of fundraising.