Van-mounted DC top-ups for EVs stuck on highways, sold to roadside firms
TL;DR Roadsidedc parks battery-powered DC charging vans at hubs along two or three busy intercity corridors. When an electric car runs flat or the charger it was counting on is dead, a van drives out and adds enough charge to reach the next working station. Roadside-assistance companies and carmakers' assistance programmes pay per job.
Intercity EV trips depend on public fast chargers, which government guidance asks for roughly every 25 km[1]. But guidance isn't a working plug at 11 p.m. If a driver reaches a broken charger with 5% left then the only standard answer today is a tow. One of the largest roadside assistance networks runs 6,500+ tow trucks and lists fuel delivery for petrol and diesel cars, with nothing like it for electric ones[2].
A tow is slow and expensive for whoever pays, and it turns a range problem into a lost day. One firm that repairs commercial EVs on site says downtime after a breakdown shapes trust in EVs more than any brochure does[3].
What it does, in regulatory terms: an on-site EV charging service delivered from a vehicle. It sells a charging service, which Ministry of Power guidance treats as a service and not a sale of electricity[4]. The van, its battery unit and its fit-out need vehicle and electrical approvals before it goes on a public road.
Each van carries a battery pack and a DC charger with CCS2 and Type 2 leads. Vans sit at fuel-station or dhaba hubs about 60–80 km apart on two or three corridors and charge overnight from the grid. An assistance company forwards the job, the van reaches the car and adds 10–15 kWh in about half an hour, and the driver carries on to the next working station. Dispatch logs location, energy delivered and time on scene for the payer's audit.
The original idea was a consumer app for on-demand rescue charging. I'd drop that, because it gets too few calls per van to pay for the battery. The US company the original name echoed now sells planned mobile power to fleets and sites instead[5]. In cities, mobile-charging vans already bundle rescue sessions into home plans[6]. Highways, sold wholesale through assistance firms, are the open lane.
Drivers rarely pay directly. They hold roadside cover bundled in by the carmaker, the insurer or a membership. The assistance company pays a per-job fee and saves itself a tow. Carmakers' assistance programmes are the second buyer, since a flat battery on a highway looks bad for the brand. For a price anchor, one mobile-charging service sells urban plans at ₹20,999 a year with ten rescue sessions included[6].
FY26 retail included about 2 lakh electric cars, 4.25% of 47 lakh passenger vehicles[7], and owners are starting to take them between cities. PM E-DRIVE funds 22,100 fast chargers for electric cars from September 2024[8], but those take time to build and stay patchy on smaller roads. Battery packs fell to US$115/kWh (about ₹11,100) in 2024[9], which makes a van-sized pack affordable.
I found no public figure for how often Indian EVs run out of charge on highways, and that's the number to pin down first. The firmest related signal is the EV car fleet itself, about 2 lakh added in FY26[7], plus assistance networks big enough to resell the service - the largest one reports 3.4M+ customers[2].
One mobile-charging service runs app-booked DC vans for Gurugram residents and lists four more cities as coming soon[6]. Roadside assistance networks handle EV towing and minor fixes[2]. An on-site EV repair chain covers 11 cities[3]. Abroad, a US mobile-charging firm sells mobile power to fleets and events[5]. Nobody I found runs dedicated EV charge-delivery for highway assistance jobs.
| Difficulty | Hard (57/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1.2–2.2 Cr |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The first hurdle is getting a large battery legally onto a road vehicle and keeping it safe in a north Indian summer. The second is utilisation, because a van that waits all day for two calls loses money, so contracts must pay for standby time or the vans need other work.
Yes. A van carrying a large battery and a DC charger needs approvals before it goes on a public road.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let a model judge whether the van's battery is safe to run in a summer heatwave. That needs sensor limits and a trained operator.
Want to work out the AI layer for Roadsidedc? Talk to Yash →
I'd explore this if you have roadside-assistance or fleet-operations experience and can sign one assistance company before building a single van. If you need consumer downloads to feel progress then it is not for you. Prove one thing first - one van on one corridor can handle six or more paid jobs a week.
Plan for roughly ₹1.2–2.2 Cr, most of it on vans, battery packs and DC chargers for two or three corridors.
You need vehicle approvals for the modified van and a charger that meets BIS IS:17017. Charging itself is treated as a service, but confirm how that applies to a mobile unit with your state.
Yes, wherever highway charging is still patchy. Check your local rules on vehicle modification and mobile charging equipment before buying vans.
The free Roadsidedc validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the vehicle and electrical approvals checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for assistance firms and carmakers, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Roadsidedc or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting enough paid calls per van to cover the battery, and that's a numbers problem I enjoy working through with founders. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.