Exponent Energy, an energy-tech company based in Bengaluru, has opened its first Exponent Sales Point (ESP) Store in Laggere, Bengaluru. The outlet will showcase the full range of Exponent-enabled three-wheelers and serve as a destination for customers. The store will also operate as a retrofit touchpoint for converting existing CNG/LPG passenger three-wheelers into electric vehicles.

The store creates direct access for auto drivers to explore Exponent-enabled vehicles, experience 15-minute rapid charging, understand the retrofit process and take test drives. Drivers can drop off their CNG or LPG autos and pick up their EV retrofits within 24 hours. Exponent plans to add over 15 touchpoints across Bengaluru by the end of FY2026.

Exponent has launched 5 three-wheelers in partnership with OEMs such as Montra Electric (the Murugappa Group) and Kinetic Green. The store brings all Exponent-enabled models under one roof, allowing customers to explore and purchase with financing options and documentation. Every vehicle comes with a five-year warranty or 3,000 charging cycles. With zero to 100 percent 15-minute rapid charging and access to Exponent’s 70-plus charging points across Bengaluru, the company aims to make the shift to electric practical.

Ayush Bhargava, Head of Business, Exponent Energy, said, “Our first ESP store gives drivers a firsthand experience of the full Exponent ecosystem, from exploring our range of Exponent-enabled vehicles to seeing how existing vehicles can be upgraded. This is a buying experience auto drivers have never had before, combining clarity, choice and convenience under one roof. With this store, we are setting the foundation for a faster, more accessible EV transition and plan to replicate this model across more cities soon. When drivers see how easily they can switch to EVs at lower running costs, the shift becomes inevitable.”

In November 2025, Exponent Energy entered the EV retrofit business with its newly launched retrofit technology, Exponent Oto, capable of converting any CNG or LPG auto into an electric vehicle in just 24 hours. With zero down payment, flexible EMIs and an assured buyback after three years, Exponent makes the transition to electric simple. Exponent Oto allows drivers to save up to INR 5,000 every month, even after accounting for charging and EMI costs.

Exponent was co-founded in 2020 by ex-Ather executives Arun Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal. The company worked on its battery pack (e^pack), charging station (e^pump), and charging connector (e^plug) that together unlock a 15-minute rapid charge and give 3,000 cycle life warranty for EVs – all done on a range of lithium-ion cells.

The company has over 2,500 EVs powered by Exponent tech on the roads of India, 150-plus charging stations, over 1 million rapid charging sessions completed and over 50 million kilometres covered. The company has expanded to four new cities within two years.

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Coretura, a 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group, has entered into an engineering agreement with Accenture to accelerate the development of a software platform for commercial vehicles.

The company, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently employs over 100 engineers. It continues to recruit specialists in system architecture, high-performance computing and cloud infrastructure to support its roadmap, which targets the delivery of its first commercialised products towards the end of the decade.

Coretura intends to create a single software platform, language and standard for trucks, buses and other heavy-duty transport vehicles. The platform is designed to support vehicle lifecycles of more than 15 years, moving the industry away from projects that require custom software development for each new vehicle.

As the engineering partner, Accenture will support development across several areas, including:

• Electrical and Electronic (E/E) architecture
• Software abstraction and hardware integration
• Embedded software, middleware, and cybersecurity
• Functional safety and cloud infrastructure

The platform aims to provide a reusable software stack to lower costs and standardise time-to-market for global manufacturers. For fleet operators, the system is designed to allow for continuous software updates and performance upgrades delivered over the air.

Johan Lunden, CEO, Coretura, said, “Our purpose is to advance mobility at the speed of ideas, and that takes depth. Building a full-stack SDV platform demands expertise across embedded software, middleware, cybersecurity, and functional safety, all designed for vehicles with lifecycles measured in decades. Accenture’s reinvention capabilities let us move faster without compromising the standards our customers depend on. This is acceleration, not course correction.”

Rainer Oder, SDV Embedded Software Lead, Accenture, added, “Helping the industry advance software-defined vehicles is a priority for Accenture. Our landmark collaboration with Coretura is designed to change embedded software engineering for automotive platforms. Together, we are looking to solve the challenges of a fully software-defined architecture – addressing critical areas such as hardware abstraction, API management and AI-based engineering optimisations.”

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The ePlane Company has announced the completion of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X. Designated PT-01, the prototype has successfully integrated all core subsystems into a single structure, marking the transition from design and simulation to physical testing.

The e200X is designed as a single airframe versatile enough to serve three distinct markets – Passenger Air Taxi, Urban Cargo Carrier and Air Ambulance.

The company emphasises that the aircraft was designed to be compact, allowing it to integrate into existing urban infrastructure without requiring significant city redesigns.

Developed at the company's own facilities in Chennai, the e200X features in-house development of major components, including propellers, airframe structure, landing gear and battery pack.

This vertical integration provides the company with control over performance, manufacturing costs, and iteration speed, having reached this milestone on approximately USD 21 million in funding.

With assembly complete, the e200X will now undergo ground testing, flight testing and certification.

Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, The ePlane Company, said, "We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World.  We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world.”

The company’s board includes prominent figures such as Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest), Eash Sundaram (JetBlue) and Aditya Ghosh (Homage, Akasa Air). The venture, incubated at IIT Madras, has also received international recognition, including being showcased at Bharat Innovates 2026 and featured in Nvidia Founder Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote.

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Chinese technology company Xiaomi has marked a new milestone for its automotive product offering with its electric vehicle.

The company has announced a significant milestone in autonomous vehicle technology by completing the first official autonomous lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the Xiaomi YU7 GT, equipped with a Track Package, navigating the 20.8 km circuit without a human driver, recording a lap time of 10:29.483.

Following this performance, the Nurburgring has introduced a new official vehicle category: Autonomous Driving (under Electric Vehicles).

The Xiaomi YU7 GT autonomously navigated all 73 corners of the Nordschleife, managing 300 metres of elevation change and varying road surface conditions. The performance was driven by Xiaomi’s autonomous driving system, which integrates the Xiaomi XLA architecture and the MiMo-Embodied foundation model introduced in March 2026. The end-to-end architecture enabled the vehicle to coordinate steering, braking and power delivery in real-time, maintaining stability under high-speed and high-load conditions.

Xiaomi’s autonomous driving programme has evolved since the 2024 launch of Xiaomi HAD. The current system moves beyond simple behaviour imitation toward autonomous decision-making and deeper environmental interpretation. The company stated that the Nurburgring project serves as a critical testing ground to collect data for refining vehicle dynamics modelling, control strategy optimisation and safety redundancy mechanisms.

This achievement underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence in the automotive sector through rigorous real-world validation.

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QuantumScape Corporation has announced a multi-year joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.

The collaboration focuses on advancing QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery platform, including the development of associated manufacturing processes.

This agreement follows a successful technology evaluation period during which Honda conducted a technical study and competitive benchmarking of QuantumScape’s battery platform.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Research Center of Excellence, Honda R&D Co, said, “QS technology demonstrated compelling and unique advantages during our evaluation. We see potential for QS technology to add value across a range of applications, including automotive, and we are excited to move forward into the next phase of our partnership.”

Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and President, QuantumScape, added, “Honda is a leading global automaker renowned for its engineering excellence and product quality across automotive and other applications worldwide, and its evaluation represents one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. This agreement reflects the growing confidence in QS solid-state lithium-metal batteries to enable safer, higher-density energy storage.”

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