Commercial electric vehicle (EV) startup Turno has appointed clean-tech engineer Karthik Ganesh to head its batteries division.
Turno’s batteries unit seeks to create a platform for trade in used batteries at a time when India’s EV market is growing and the end-of-life battery management challenge is becoming more acute.
Ganesh has previously worked with EV manufacturers and battery research companies around the world, including Mercedes-Benz Research and Development, Vestas Wind Systems, QuantumScape Technologies, EnerVault Systems, and Sun Mobility.
With experience in energy storage, flow batteries and lithium-ion batteries, Ganesh will work on deconstructing commercially available batteries for sale on Turno’s platform. For vehicles sold and financed through Turno’s platform, the company offers guaranteed end-of-life battery resale.
Using a custom-built system for real-time data gathering on the vehicle, its battery and driving patterns, road quality, weather, and other factors that influence battery life, Turno expects to lower EV ownership costs and barriers for mass adoption, a company statement said.
Ganesh will build an end-to-end process to repurpose used battery packs and cells to create second-life energy storage systems for non-automotive applications. “To ensure high degrees of safety, Karthik’s team is working on novel solutions that allow proper thermal management, dynamic and adaptive control and estimation routines, and optimised charging schemes,” the company said.
Ganesh will also lead a team building a real-time mobile app for EV consumers that will give them a real-time view of their battery value and gamify driving behaviour through notifications and suggestions on utilising batteries and vehicles better.
“We are delighted that someone of Karthik’s experience has chosen to join hands with us to make our dream of building sustainable, energy efficient clean transportation ecosystems a reality,” said CEO and co-founder Hemanth Aluru, “Creating deep markets for used batteries and cells is absolutely critical in lowering overall costs of ownership on electric vehicles. A lack of these markets is a key bottleneck for mass EV adoption in developing economies like India as the flow of debt capital is throttled and consumer affordability is severely impacted.”
India’s EV market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 49 per cent between 2022 and 2030. Batteries are 40-50 per cent of an EV’s cost, and less than 5 per cent of used battery packs are currently recycled.
Turno expects to repurpose used lithium-ion batteries from EVs for use as storage for renewable energy grids, data centres, and large-scale industrial power backup devices.
