What if one could foresee battery failures before they happen? Arjun Sinha Roy of iRasus Technologies, in an interaction with EFY’s Nitisha Dubey, discusses how their innovation, Preksha, utilises telematics, digital twins, and advanced analytics to achieve this.
Q. How can Preksha use telematics and analytics to ensure safe, reliable, affordable, clean energy?
A. Batteries are not well understood in the ecosystem, whether in electric vehicles (EVs) or stationary storage for solar or diesel replacement. We use telematics to extract battery data, build a digital twin, and then apply analytics to deliver business insights, ensuring clean energy adoption is safe, reliable, and affordable. Our product, called ‘Preksha’ (Sanskrit for ‘sight’), extracts data from batteries, analyses it with our algorithms, and presents actionable insights to users in sectors like EVs and stationary storage.
Q. What makes Preksha unique, and how does it work?
A. The uniqueness comes from our domain expertise, built over five years of studying battery behaviour, its architecture, chemistry, and battery management systems (BMS). Depending on the industry, a small hardware device connects to the battery via controller area network (CAN) port, onboard diagnostics (OBD) port, local area network (LAN), or Wi-Fi. The device transmits data to a server (cloud or on-premise), and our platform generates charts and dashboards for different teams, operations, business, and management, to monitor and optimise battery performance.
Q. How is Preksha integrated into vehicles?
A. We sell to business-to-business (B2B) customers like battery manufacturers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Integration now mostly happens at the source. When the battery pack or bus is manufactured, the device and platform are active from day one. Once installed, the data begins to flow immediately. Operations and service teams use this data to ensure uptime, diagnose problems quickly, and enable proactive maintenance.
Q. Can you give examples of clients using Preksha?
A. While I cannot share names without approval, our platform is used by one of India’s largest bus fleets, about 2300 buses, with a dedicated monitoring team. We also work with a last-mile delivery commercial vehicle OEM, managing uptime for about 20 vehicles. In total, we monitor around 3,000 buses and several thousand batteries in smaller EVs.
Q. What benefits have customers seen after adopting Preksha?
A. For one bus fleet, we increased uptime by 30 minutes per day, resulting in approximately ₹100,000 (₹1 lakh) extra daily revenue for a fleet of 2000 buses. Our data also enables proactive servicing, reducing breakdowns. In one case, a battery manufacturer rejected a warranty claim by proving misuse through our data. Benefits include improved uptime, reduced maintenance costs, better warranty management, and early fault detection.
Q. Do you have any patents?
A. Not yet, but we are planning to file patents, particularly for innovations in data extraction and remote firmware upgrades for batteries.
Q. Who are your target customers?
A. Anyone using batteries for business operations. We began in the EV industry, focusing on two- and three-wheelers at the low end and electric buses at the higher end. We also plan to enter the electric truck market. On the stationary side, we are targeting diesel replacement with battery energy storage, solar grid storage, drones, and data centres.
Q. How many batteries or fleet units are you monitoring in India?
A. Around 2500 two- and three-wheeler batteries, plus about 15,000 bus batteries across 3000 buses.
Q. Which sector currently dominates your deployments?
A. The three-wheeler segment leads now, but we expect significant growth in electric buses over the next year. Stationary storage for diesel replacement will also become a major focus.
Q. Have you done pilot projects with OEMs or fleet operators?
A. Yes, we have worked with one bus OEM now live on our platform and are in talks with others. We have proven our value with thousands of vehicles, so proof-of-concept (POC) projects are only needed for specific use cases, such as remote firmware upgrades.
Q. What challenges have you faced in developing Preksha?
A. Initially, identifying early adopter markets was challenging, but we found public and commercial transportation to be key. Another hurdle was customer education, as many did not understand the need for battery data. Early on, standardisation of data communication was also a challenge, but the market is now more standardised.
Q. How do you account for India’s varied climate in your models?
A. Our models take into account geography and terrain, as mileage varies with climate and gradients. We build benchmarks for performance based on battery capacity, taking into account environmental factors.
Q. Has Preksha been tested for extreme conditions?
A. Yes, our telematics devices are IP65-rated, making them resistant to extreme temperatures, humidity, and dust. We focus on using battery data to flag performance or safety issues caused by environmental conditions.
Q. What technical expertise is required to use Preksha?
A. Basic operations knowledge is enough. With minimal training, even technicians with a diploma can interpret the visual charts and data.
Q. Is multilingual support available?
A. In the core application, not yet, but we plan to add it. Our mobile app and charts are highly visual, so language barriers are minimal.
Q. How does Preksha help in cost-sensitive scenarios with lower-quality batteries?
A. We establish performance benchmarks and compare them to actual data to identify areas of underperformance. We also correlate issues like high battery temperatures with possible coolant failures, helping address root causes and maintain performance even in lower-cost systems.
Q. How was your last fiscal year, and what are your growth plans?
A. We expect six to seven times growth this year, to become cash positive by year-end, and double our headcount from 15 to 30. We are expanding in India with offices in Gurugram, Bengaluru, and soon Pune. Next year, we will scale our stationary storage product line, aiming for another six to seven times growth.
Q. What future plans do you have?
A. We will expand beyond EVs into stationary storage, data centres, and global markets, starting with Southeast Asia and Africa, then moving to North America and Europe. Since our platform is software-based, it can scale quickly through partnerships. Our goal is for Preksha to be present in every business using batteries, ensuring they are safe, reliable, and affordable.
