Back in 2020 summer, during an electric vehicle workshop in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, a technician was not only doing something dangerous, but it was his routine to do it that way. What was he doing, though? Shubham Mishra, co-founder of BatteryOk Technologies, recalls, “He was inspecting an e-bike battery, not with any specialised tool or equipment, but with his bare hands. The battery was extremely hot, and the technician was using rudimentary methods to judge its condition, without caring about his safety.”

Following this observation, Shubham shares, “That was the moment that set me on the path I am on today. It was not just about building a portable battery diagnostic device, but finding a solution people can trust.”

That unsettling observation eventually gave birth to ‘EV Doctor’, an advanced, AI-powered battery diagnostic tool that has gained massive attention in the Indian and global EV ecosystem. But the story of this entrepreneurial journey for Shubham did not begin in a lab. It started in a car park.

Before the incident in Gandhinagar, the 30-year-old was working as a design engineer at Gensol Engineering Private Limited, the parent company of BluSmart Mobility. Every day, as he walked through the company’s parking area, he noticed an increasing number of electric two-wheelers lined up. This always inspired him to start a business in the field.

With a master of Technology (MTech) in Energy Infrastructure from the Institute of Infrastructure, Technology, Research and Management (IITRAM), and an executive education programme from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) under his belt, he had the academic background to understand energy systems. But it was his day-to-day experiences that gave him the drive to do something different.

“I used to look at those e-bikes and think, what if we could make this accessible to everyone? What if we could make EVs affordable for all?” he ponders.

Startup struggles and pandemic pause

In 2019, driven by this vision, Shubham left his corporate job and, alongside Ajay Vashisht, a fellow engineer and problem-solver, launched E-Vega Mobility Labs, a startup dedicated to creating cost-effective e-bike components.

The venture received financial backing through a Rs 2 lakh grant from the Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council under the Student Startup and Innovation Policy (SSIP), as well as Rs 5 lakh from the National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations – Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Innovators & Startups (NIDHI-PRAYAS).

The startup gained early traction, but just as it was preparing to scale, the pandemic brought everything to a halt.

As the world went into lockdown, Shubham took the time to look deeper into the EV industry. The duo began meeting battery manufacturers and EV experts, first over Zoom calls, then later at exhibitions and conferences. That was when they began to understand the missing piece; batteries were the beating heart of EVs, yet the least understood and least trusted. The incident in Gandhinagar also prompted him to focus on the missing........

© The Better India