Engineering the Future of Smart Mobility and Clean Energy

My journey into engineering began in the most organic way possible - growing up watching my father build a thriving nursery business from the ground up in California. From a very young age, I was not just observing; I was participating - selling plants as a third-grader, writing invoicing programs in Pascal, even trying to automate greenhouse systems. That environment instilled in me the discipline of solving real-world problems from both a technical and business perspective simultaneously.

My academic path at Santa Clara University - a bachelor’s in digital-analogue electronics followed by a master’s in electrical engineering specialising in semiconductor physics - provided the theoretical foundation. My time as a research assistant at Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre, working on high-temperature superconductors, and later at Hitachi America in ASIC chip design, ignited a passion for applied, systems-level thinking. I realised early on that the real power lies not in any single component, but in how an entire system is architected and integrated.

When I founded System Level Solutions in 2001, the vision was to build end-to-end capabilities - from hardware design and firmware to cloud connectivity. Over two decades, that foundation matured through IoT deployments, smart metering, EV charger load balancing for UK grid operators, and communications hub development for companies such as Toshiba and EDMI. VerdeMobility, our wholly owned electric mobility subsidiary, is the natural culmination of everything SLS has built. It is not a pivot; it is an evolution.

This evolution is driven by a philosophy I hold deeply: the best way to understand a problem space is to get your hands into it. A good example is our decision to retrofit a Renault KWID into a fully electric vehicle and take it through the complete RTO certification process, making VerdeMobility the first company in Gujarat to achieve certified KWID EV conversion. We did this to understand retrofit dynamics from the inside - the engineering challenges, regulatory pathways, and compliance requirements.

That spirit of deliberate, exploratory innovation is embedded in our DNA. It is how SLS has always operated, and VerdeMobility carries that same approach. The fact that we are also running a live EV bus service at GIFT City - serving over 1.37 million passengers and covering more than 140,000 km since September 2024 - demonstrates how that philosophy translates into real operational outcomes.

VerdeMobility is a wholly owned subsidiary of SLS but operates independently, with its own leadership, customer relationships, commercial focus, and operational accountability within the EV ecosystem. That independence is intentional. The EV space evolves rapidly in technology, regulation, and competitive dynamics, and full immersion is essential. We have structured VerdeMobility to maintain that focus while ensuring the SLS connection remains a genuine strength.

At the same time, independence does not mean starting from scratch. VerdeMobility draws on SLS’s engineering expertise, manufacturing infrastructure in Anand, embedded systems capability, and the Nebulae cloud platform wherever relevant. It is the best of both worlds - the agility of a dedicated mobility company backed by 25 years of deep-tech capability. When VerdeMobility needs power electronics design, PCB development, firmware, or cloud integration, that expertise is readily available. This allows us to commit to engineering quality, ARAI certification standards, and delivery timelines that many new entrants cannot match, while keeping our teams fully focused on mobility outcomes.

For me, balancing both means maintaining strategic clarity about where each organisation is headed and ensuring shared resources genuinely support VerdeMobility’s mission. Running live bus routes, deploying chargers across multiple states, and developing next-generation BESS-integrated products requires operational freedom and dedicated focus from the VerdeMobility team.

My role is to protect that freedom, ensure the relationship between the two organisations remains a competitive advantage, and help both excel in their respective domains. The results - more than 1.37 million passengers served and megawatts of energy deployed across multiple states - suggest the model is working as intended.

Electronics, energy, and mobility - three sectors that once operated in relative isolation - are now deeply intertwined. A modern electric vehicle is essentially a rolling data centre with a power management system and a drivetrain. The BMS is sophisticated electronics, power electronics govern energy conversion efficiency, and telematics generates continuous data for diagnostics and grid interaction. None of these layers works in isolation, and organisations that treat them as separate disciplines will be outcompeted by those that integrate them seamlessly. A vehicle with a well-designed BMS but poorly matched charging infrastructure loses efficiency at every session, while a charger with sophisticated power electronics but no grid-awareness can fail in India’s variable distribution environment.

From an energy perspective, EVs are no longer just consumers of electricity - they are potential grid assets. Vehicle-to-grid technology could allow connected fleets to help balance supply and demand in real time. This is an area we explored with the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on EV charger load balancing, and those lessons continue to shape how we architect VerdeMobility’s infrastructure. Adding BESS - already validated through a UK proof of concept - means the grid, storage system, charger, and vehicle become active participants in a single intelligent energy ecosystem, optimising against one another in real time.

At VerdeMobility, we believe the best way to understand this convergence is to engage with it directly - operating a live bus service, deploying a full AC and DC charger portfolio, developing BESS-integrated solutions, and building the data platform that ties it all together. The organisations that will define India’s EV future are those that can architect across the full stack - from vehicle electronics and charging infrastructure to energy management.

SLS is the deep-tech backbone - a vertically integrated engineering organisation spanning mechanical design, PCB development, embedded software, cloud connectivity, and manufacturing, all under one roof in Anand, Gujarat. Built over 25 years with a 270-person team, this end-to-end capability means VerdeMobility does not need to outsource critical engineering decisions or depend on supply chains it does not fully understand. The knowledge and infrastructure to build, test, certify, and manufacture reside entirely within the group - a competitive advantage that very few EV-focused organisations in India can claim.

VerdeMobility operates across two dimensions. The first is mobility services. Since September 2024, four EV buses have been running daily routes at GIFT City, connecting passengers to the Metro network. The fleet has logged over 140,000 km, completed 28,548 trips, served more than 1.37 million passengers, and reduced CO2 emissions by approximately 105.4 tonnes. Supported by a 120 kW DC charger, a 7.5 kW AC unit, and on-site solar generation, it is a fully operational, data-generating service that informs our product and operational decisions.

The second dimension is our ARAI-certified charging portfolio. On the DC side, chargers ranging from 30 kW to 360 kW serve cars, buses, and trucks across institutional and fleet deployments, including 360 kW units serving multiple truck models and 240 kW units delivering megawatts reliably in Assam. On the AC side, our chargers serve two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and cars across home, institutional, and fleet settings.

The hardware is backed by our Charge Management System, which keeps operational data sovereign within our own infrastructure, and user apps that make every charger easy to engage with. Together, mobility services, a full-spectrum charging portfolio, and a robust software layer make VerdeMobility a genuine full-stack player in India’s EV ecosystem, backed by the engineering depth of SLS. Very few organisations can simultaneously operate live EV transit, deploy certified charging across a full DC and AC portfolio, and build the underlying systems engineering entirely in-house.

For SLS, the priority is deepening product capabilities - shifting from pure engineering services into IP, platforms, and products. The Nebulae cloud connectivity framework is central to this, enabling intelligent solutions across mobility, agriculture, dairy, defence, and industrial sectors. Ensuring Nebulae underpins everything VerdeMobility delivers - from real-time charger monitoring to fleet management dashboards and energy optimisation - creates a shared intelligence layer across the group, accelerates the development of new connected offerings, and ensures data is captured and acted upon consistently across deployments.

For VerdeMobility, three priorities define the roadmap. First, scaling mobility operations by using the GIFT City bus service as a validated template for replication across other cities and corridors. The data accumulated across 28,000-plus trips and 140,000-plus kilometres informs vehicle specification, charging sizing, route planning, and maintenance logic, making every new deployment faster and more reliable.

Second, strengthening the intelligence layer across the charging portfolio. Our DC and AC charger ranges are already ARAI certified and deployed in the field; the next step is ensuring every installation is backed by our Charge Management System, robust remote monitoring, predictive diagnostics, and user apps that keep reliability and usability high throughout the product lifecycle.

Third - and most strategically exciting - is coupling Battery Energy Storage Systems with our charging infrastructure. Our UK proof of concept demonstrated how BESS can buffer peak demand, reduce grid stress, and improve charging economics where grid capacity is limited or power quality is inconsistent. Bringing this to India, alongside our charger portfolio and solar augmentation where feasible, creates a differentiated energy and mobility platform. Underpinning everything is India’s growing semiconductor and electronics manufacturing ambition - an ecosystem SLS has helped build for over two decades and one that VerdeMobility’s domestic-first approach directly supports.

Operating a live EV bus service and deploying charging infrastructure across multiple states has given us a frontline understanding of execution realities that no amount of lab testing or simulation can fully replicate. Every challenge encountered in the field makes our engineering better, our processes more robust, and our advice to customers more grounded.

The first challenge is the unforeseeable. You can engineer for expected duty cycles, temperature ranges, and load profiles, but not every real-world event - whether it is a damaged charging connector, a software edge case, or a component behaving differently after months of continuous service. Managing live infrastructure requires robust processes, spare parts logistics, and rapid response capability so incidents do not disrupt operations. Every such event becomes a design input that improves the next iteration.

The second challenge is certification and compliance. Getting the technology right is only part of the effort; navigating regulatory requirements and standards adherence is equally important. All our DC chargers carry ARAI certification, and our RTO certification for Gujarat’s first retrofitted KWID EV reinforced the same lesson: treating compliance as a core discipline from the outset prevents costly redesigns later.

The third challenge is geographic and product scale. Supporting cars, buses, and trucks with DC chargers, while also serving two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and cars with AC chargers across locations as varied as GIFT City and Assam, requires strong site partnerships, utility coordination, supply chain discipline, and remote monitoring that proactively detects and resolves issues before they become service failures. At scale, that intelligence layer is not optional - it is a fundamental operational requirement.

The BMS is the most foundational enabling technology. It determines safety, battery longevity, and energy efficiency across every vehicle category - from a two-wheeler to a heavy commercial bus. A poorly designed BMS accelerates degradation, creates safety hazards, and undermines user confidence. Getting it right requires expertise across electrochemistry, embedded systems, real-time control algorithms, and thermal management, along with continuous refinement from real-world operational data. The data generated across our bus fleet and charger network directly informs this development.

Power electronics are equally critical, governing how efficiently energy moves from the grid to the battery to the wheel. Our charging portfolio reflects this depth. On the AC side, chargers serve two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and cars across home, institutional, and fleet settings. On the DC side, we span 30 kW to 360 kW, serving cars, buses, and trucks. Engineering safely and reliably across that full power spectrum demands the same systems discipline SLS has applied to embedded hardware for over two decades.

Real-time charger monitoring deserves particular emphasis in India. Voltage variations, harmonic distortions, current instabilities, insulation degradation, and temperature excursions can silently erode charger performance. Our chargers continuously monitor these parameters, enabling proactive interventions and automated alerts before anomalies become failures. In India’s grid environment, this capability is essential for long-term reliability.

I would add BESS as a fourth critical enabler. Coupling Battery Energy Storage Systems with chargers smooths demand peaks, enables deployment in capacity-constrained locations, and optimises energy costs. Our UK proof of concept validated this, and the potential across India’s grid landscape is substantial.

The fifth is software. A state-of-the-art Charge Management System, combined with intuitive user apps, transforms hardware into a service. Without the right software layer, even excellent chargers become difficult to manage at scale. The CMS is not simply a back-office tool - it is the operational nervous system of the entire charging network.

Progress has been real but uneven. FAME II helped stimulate demand and reduce upfront cost barriers, particularly for two- and three-wheelers, while the PLI schemes for advanced chemistry cells and auto components sent positive signals to the manufacturing ecosystem and are beginning to attract meaningful investment. These were important steps in building momentum.

However, indigenisation needs to go much deeper. India cannot build a durable EV ecosystem on imported components indefinitely. A policy that genuinely incentivises indigenous BMS, power electronics, and charging infrastructure development will deliver significant long-term benefits. SLS and VerdeMobility are committed to this approach, with engineering and manufacturing rooted in India and products designed specifically for Indian conditions.

The area I want to address most directly is government tender procurement. There is still a tendency to select on the lowest price, which in the EV charging space is often a false economy. A charger that wins on price but cannot handle India’s voltage fluctuations, heat, and humidity delivers little value. Our ARAI-certified chargers, including 240 kW units reliably deploying megawatts in Assam, demonstrate the importance of quality engineering. Tenders should evaluate the total cost of ownership, reliability, and component quality rather than the upfront cost alone.

Progress is also needed on interoperability standards, vehicle-to-grid regulatory frameworks, and streamlined certification pathways for innovative products. India has the engineering talent, manufacturing base, and market scale to build a world-class EV ecosystem. The challenge is converting that potential into consistent, long-term policy execution.

System-level integration is the defining differentiator between EV solutions that merely function and those that excel under demanding real-world conditions. The name System Level Solutions reflects a conviction we have held for 25 years: real value is created at the intersection of components and subsystems, not within any one of them in isolation. A charger with excellent power electronics but inadequate grid interface firmware will struggle in India’s conditions, while a well-designed BMS that is poorly integrated with thermal management can become a liability. Integration is not an afterthought - it is where reliability is created.

Our 240 kW chargers in Assam demonstrate this in practice. They have been reliably delivering megawatts of energy for months in conditions characterised by heat, humidity, and grid variability. That performance is possible because power electronics, thermal management, grid interface circuitry, monitoring firmware, and cloud connectivity are designed to work as a coherent system. When a parameter drifts - whether voltage or temperature - the system responds as a whole.

At 360 kW, integration becomes even more critical. The charger must communicate reliably with the vehicle’s BMS, manage thermal loads dynamically, monitor key parameters in real time, and interface safely with the grid across different vehicle and site conditions. This requires purposeful systems engineering rather than components assembled independently and expected to interoperate.

The same philosophy governs our entire portfolio, from AC chargers for two- and three-wheelers to DC chargers for fleets and heavy commercial vehicles. Above it all sits our Charge Management System, which aggregates operational data, keeps it sovereign within our own infrastructure, and makes it actionable through purpose-built applications. That coherence across hardware, firmware, and software is what delivers reliable performance year after year.

Data transforms hardware from a product into a continuously improving service, and this is most visible in our charging network. Every charger, whether an AC unit serving two-wheelers at home or a DC charger serving trucks at a fleet depot, continuously generates operational data, including voltage levels, harmonic content, current draw, insulation resistance, component temperatures, and energy metrics. In India’s variable grid environment, this real-time visibility enables proactive interventions, automated alerts, and remote diagnostics before anomalies become failures. A charger that monitors intelligently lasts for years; one that operates blindly degrades until it breaks.

On the mobility side, every trip and charging session completed by our bus fleet feeds a growing dataset that reveals how vehicles perform under real conditions, where inefficiencies emerge, and what future products need to address. This continuous feedback loop is only possible because data capture and connectivity were designed into the system from the outset. The result is a product that improves and adapts throughout its service life.

At the centre of this ecosystem is our Charge Management System (CMS), which aggregates data across the network, manages session authorisation, tracks energy delivery, and generates the operational intelligence needed to keep infrastructure performing at its best. Importantly, all operational data remains within our own infrastructure, which is increasingly important for institutional and government clients.

Alongside the CMS, we have developed user-facing applications that make charger access and management straightforward for both fleet operators and individual users. Together, this software and data stack - from charger-level intelligence to the CMS and SLS’s Nebulae cloud platform - delivers predictive maintenance, real-time asset visibility, energy analytics, and lower total cost of ownership. It is what turns electrification from a compelling idea into a practical reality.

BESS-integrated charging is the near-term opportunity I am most focused on. Coupling Battery Energy Storage Systems with EV charging infrastructure transforms the economics by storing energy during off-peak periods and dispatching it during high-demand sessions. This reduces grid stress, lowers operating costs, and enables deployment where grid capacity is limited. Our UK proof of concept validated this, and the opportunity in India is substantial, given variable grid quality and growing charging demand. Paired with our AC and DC charger portfolio, BESS creates an intelligent energy platform adaptable to a wide range of deployment scenarios.

Solar-augmented charging is a natural complement and is already operational at GIFT City, where on-site solar supplements the grid supply. Scaling renewable generation, smart charging, and BESS buffering across residential complexes, logistics depots, and transit hubs represents a significant clean energy opportunity that extends beyond vehicle decarbonisation. It also connects directly to SLS’s Sunsights renewable energy vertical.

Vehicle-to-grid technology is the longer-term opportunity I find most strategically compelling. A connected EV fleet can function as a distributed energy storage asset, returning power to the grid during periods of peak demand. With our charger intelligence, UK grid load-balancing experience, and operational fleet, we are well-positioned as India’s V2G framework matures.

Finally, vehicle retrofitting remains an underappreciated opportunity. India’s vast ICE vehicle base will not transition overnight, and millions of mechanically sound vehicles could remain in service as EVs if the economics and regulatory framework are right. As the first company in Gujarat to retrofit a Renault KWID to full EV specification with RTO certification, we gained valuable insight into the engineering and compliance dynamics of this space.

Close the gap between ambition and operation. India has no shortage of EV vision, but it needs organisations willing to put real products into real service and learn from real-world experience. Theoretical readiness and lab validation are important, but the knowledge, processes, and credibility this market demands are built through operation. At VerdeMobility, that commitment is reflected in our live bus routes, multi-state charging deployments, and product certifications earned through disciplined engineering.

For technology companies, the message is simple: build systems, not components. The EV ecosystem needs organisations that can integrate hardware, software, energy, and data while taking responsibility for the performance of the entire system. Depth of integration is what creates reliability and differentiates infrastructure that performs for years from infrastructure that fails prematurely.

For investors, it is important to recognise the realities of hardware development cycles. Deep engineering, field testing, certification, and operational experience require time and patient capital. The companies that will define India’s EV infrastructure over the next decade are being built today and need support aligned with that timeline.

For policymakers, consistency is the most valuable contribution. Long-term incentive stability, interoperability standards, and procurement criteria that prioritise reliability and total cost of ownership over lowest upfront price will do more for the EV ecosystem than any single subsidy. Procuring solely on price risks undermining infrastructure quality and public confidence in the transition.

And for all of us collectively, the mission is not simply to sell products. It is to build a mobility and energy system that is sustainable, reliable, and accessible to every Indian. That mission deserves the commitment of every stakeholder, and it is one that SLS and VerdeMobility are working towards every day.