Indofast Energy and Hala Mobility have scaled their battery-swapping partnership to 15,000 EVs and plan to reach 40,000 by March 2027 for last-mile delivery fleets.
Key points
- Indofast Energy And Hala Mobility Scale Their Battery-Swap Partnership
- How The Swap Model Actually Saves Riders Money
- The Rollout Plan, City By City
- What's Behind Indofast's Network
- Conclusion
Battery-swapping provider Indofast Energy and EV-as-a-service platform Hala Mobility have expanded their partnership with a clear target — scaling from 15,000 electric vehicles today to 40,000 by March 2027, and eventually 100,000 by March 2028. The companies say the push is aimed squarely at India's last-mile delivery and gig-economy fleets, where daily running costs matter more than almost anything else.
Indofast Energy And Hala Mobility Scale Their Battery-Swap Partnership
Table of Contents
1. Indofast Energy And Hala Mobility Scale Their Battery-Swap Partnership
2. How The Swap Model Actually Saves Riders Money
3. The Rollout Plan, City By City
4. What's Behind Indofast's Network
5. Conclusion
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The two companies say their existing collaboration has already scaled to 15,000 vehicles in under a year, running across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai. That's a fast ramp-up for a model that depends on physical swap infrastructure being in place before riders can actually rely on it — you can't scale a swap network the way you scale an app.
How The Swap Model Actually Saves Riders Money
The pitch here is straightforward. Instead of parking up and waiting for a battery to charge, a rider swaps a depleted one for a charged one in about two minutes and gets straight back on the road. Indofast and Hala claim this approach can cut running costs by up to 40% compared to petrol-powered vehicles — a number that matters a lot more once you consider the riders this is aimed at typically cover 80-100 km a day. Over a full working month, that kind of saving adds up to real money for someone earning per delivery. It's a similar logic to what's driving adoption across
electric 3-wheelers more broadly, where swap infrastructure is increasingly what determines whether a fleet operator actually switche
The Rollout Plan, City By City
Beyond the four cities already running, the companies have named Pune, Chennai and Jaipur as the next markets for expansion. Rajat Malhan, Chief Business Officer at Indofast Energy, said the pace of adoption so far shows that battery swapping has become the preferred approach for fleet operators who care most about uptime and cost control. Srikanth Reddy, founder of Hala Mobility, framed the expansion around giving riders more consistent access to charged batteries — and, by extension, more predictable daily earnings.
What's Behind Indofast's Network
Indofast Energy currently runs more than 1,900 swap stations across 24 cities, a network the company says supports over 120,000 vehicles and has enabled more than 2 billion kilometres of electric mobility so far, while helping avoid an estimated 97,000-plus tonnes of CO2 emissions. The company is a joint venture between Indian Oil Corporation and SUN Mobility, which gives it access to fuel-retail-scale infrastructure planning — a fairly different starting point from most EV startups building swap networks from zero. Hala Mobility, on its end, describes itself as a generative AI-driven aggregator connecting fleet operators and riders to EV access, charging and service networks.
Conclusion
Numbers like 40,000 vehicles by 2027 sound ambitious until you look at the existing base — 15,000 vehicles already running and a swap network that's been operating at scale for years through Indofast. What this really signals is that battery swapping, not plug-in charging, is becoming the default model for India's delivery and gig-economy EV fleets, largely because it solves the one problem that matters most to a rider working against the clock — downtime. If that trend holds, it's likely to keep shaping how
3-wheelers and other last-mile EVs get built and financed over the next couple of years, and it's worth
comparing 3-wheeler options that already support swap-compatible batteries if you're planning a fleet purchase in this space.
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Frequently Asked Questions on Commercial Vehicles
Q1. What is battery swapping in electric 3-wheelers?
Ans. Battery swapping allows a depleted battery to be exchanged for a fully charged one at a swap station in a couple of minutes, avoiding the wait time associated with plug-in charging.
Q2. Are electric 3-wheelers cheaper to run than petrol ones?
Ans. Yes, electric 3-wheelers generally offer significantly lower running costs than petrol variants, since electricity or battery-swap fees typically cost less per kilometre than fuel.
Q3. What is the typical range of a battery-swap compatible electric 3-wheeler?
Ans. Most battery-swap electric 3-wheelers offer a range of 80-100 km per swapped battery, depending on the model, load and route conditions.
Q4. Is financing available for electric 3-wheelers used in delivery fleets?
Ans. Yes, electric 3-wheelers are widely financed through banks and NBFCs, with several lenders offering fleet-specific EMI plans for delivery and gig-economy operators.