Drivn and Energy in Motion have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deploy approximately 1,000 heavy-duty electric trucks across India in two years, combining fleet financing with battery-swapping infrastructure into a single integrated offering for commercial operators.
Gurugram-based Drivn is an OEM-agnostic EV leasing platform focused on heavy commercial fleets. Energy in Motion (EIM) is an associate venture of Ravindra Energy Limited (REL) and a manufacturer of heavy-duty electric trucks built around a battery-swapping architecture. The MoU was signed on April 21, 2026, and covers vehicle supply, financing structures, deployment planning, lifecycle management, and energy support across Drivn’s existing customer network in India. The headline outcome is concrete: 1,000 swap-enabled electric heavy trucks deployed and operational within 24 months.
How the Deal Works
EIM’s core model is structurally distinct from most electric truck OEMs. The company sells bare electric tractors without battery packs, then provides the battery, charging infrastructure, and energy supply through long-term service contracts, effectively operating as both a vehicle manufacturer and an energy provider. Drivn layers its leasing and financing platform on top of that structure, handling the acquisition cost for fleet operators who cannot or choose not to purchase the vehicles outright. Together, the two companies will jointly identify deployment opportunities, align on vehicle specifications for each customer’s route and payload requirements, manage delivery timelines, and provide integrated after-sales support including access to EIM’s charging and battery-swapping network. The MoU does not disclose financial terms such as per-unit pricing, lease rates, or revenue sharing between the two companies.
What Came Before This
EIM only began commercial operations on August 1, 2025, making this MoU one of its earliest and most significant distribution partnerships since entering the market. The company has been building its battery-swapping infrastructure and energy service contracts in parallel with vehicle sales, which means fleet operators who come through Drivn’s network gain access to an energy ecosystem that most electric truck OEMs in India have not yet built. Drivn, for its part, has been assembling an ecosystem of MoUs across the electric mobility value chain and recently secured a US$ 80 million commitment from Nomura, giving it the financing capacity to back a deployment target of this size.
Why These Two Specifically
The complementary fit here is unusually precise. EIM brings the vehicle and the energy layer: a heavy-duty electric truck designed for India’s freight conditions, a battery-swapping architecture that removes the battery cost from the vehicle acquisition price, and long-term energy service contracts that give fleet operators predictable running costs. Drivn brings the financial and operational layer: an OEM-agnostic leasing platform that can absorb upfront vehicle costs, a customer network already operating heavy commercial fleets, and the fleet lifecycle management capability to handle deployment planning, maintenance coordination, and utilisation tracking at scale. Neither company can deliver a complete solution independently. Together, they remove the three barriers that consistently slow heavy truck electrification in India: high acquisition cost, uncertain energy access, and lack of lifecycle support.
What the Executives Said
Manav Bansal, CEO and Co-founder, Drivn, said, “Scaling electric trucks in India will depend on how well they perform as a commercial solution for fleet operators. While intent to adopt is already there, the transition will be driven by clear economics, consistent performance, and dependable operations. This partnership with Energy in Motion brings together complementary strengths across vehicles, energy infrastructure, and financing, allowing us to offer a more complete and practical solution to our customers.”
Bansal’s framing is deliberately grounded in commercial reality rather than sustainability messaging, which is the right register for an audience of fleet operators making capital allocation decisions on freight routes.
Alpna Jain, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Drivn, said, “For most fleet operators, the shift to electric is still a business decision first. It comes down to how simple the process is, how predictable the costs are, and how reliable the overall ecosystem feels. Through this collaboration, we are aligning vehicle supply, financing structures, and lifecycle support in a way that reduces complexity for the end user.”
Jain’s emphasis on simplicity and predictability identifies exactly what the leasing plus energy-as-a-service model is designed to deliver: a single monthly cost that replaces the fragmented expenses of vehicle EMI, diesel, and maintenance that fleet operators currently manage separately.
Narendra M. Murkumbi, Managing Director and CEO, Energy in Motion, said, “This MoU is further validation of the EIM approach to solving the entire EV challenge in heavy commercial vehicles by enabling scale and selling vehicles without battery pack and offering a charging service with swappable batteries.”
Murkumbi’s comment confirms that EIM sees its battery-separated model as a systemic solution to the heavy truck EV adoption problem rather than a product feature, and this partnership is the first large-scale test of whether that model can reach fleet operators efficiently through a leasing intermediary.
What Changes on the Ground
For fleet operators currently running diesel trucks on high-utilisation inter-city or last-mile freight corridors, this partnership changes the entry calculation significantly. Instead of evaluating an electric truck purchase at full price with an uncertain energy infrastructure, an operator can access the vehicle through Drivn’s leasing structure at a predictable monthly cost, swap batteries rather than wait for a charge cycle, and rely on EIM’s long-term energy service contract for running cost certainty. The 1,000-unit deployment target, if achieved within 24 months, would represent a meaningful contribution to India’s nascent electric heavy truck fleet, a segment where single-digit monthly sales numbers remain the norm and most operators are still watching from the sidelines.
About the Companies
Drivn is an OEM-agnostic EV leasing platform headquartered in Gurugram, focused on heavy commercial vehicle fleets. The company recently secured a US$ 80 million commitment from Nomura to fund its fleet deployment and financing operations, and has been building a portfolio of ecosystem partnerships across vehicle manufacturers, energy providers, and fleet operators.
Energy in Motion Private Limited is an associate venture of Ravindra Energy Limited, a renewable energy company. EIM manufactures heavy-duty electric trucks designed around a battery-swapping architecture, selling vehicles without battery packs and providing batteries, charging infrastructure, and energy supply through long-term service contracts. The company began commercial operations in August 2025 and is building its swap infrastructure in parallel with its vehicle sales network.
What Comes Next
The immediate milestone to watch is whether the first tranche of truck deployments through Drivn’s customer network reaches the road within the next two quarters, establishing a real-world performance dataset that will be far more persuasive to the wider fleet operator community than any announcement. The unresolved question is geographic coverage: with 1,000 trucks across a two-year timeline, where EIM’s battery-swapping infrastructure is already operational will determine which corridors and customers Drivn can actually serve first.