EU Battery Regulation Compliance Platform
Battery manufacturers in India must comply with EU Battery Regulation Articles 62–69 (mineral sourcing — live since January 2025) and Articles 77–83 (Digital Battery Passport — deadline February 2027). The current process is entirely manual: 2–3 weeks per compliance batch, ₹2–5 Crore annually in compliance costs, and a ₹50+ Lakh export blockage risk for every non-compliant shipment.
Enforcement is active — not theoretical. The Feb 2027 Digital Battery Passport deadline creates a hard, visible catalyst. There is currently no existing automation in the Indian market. Battery manufacturers have an acute, unmet need with a clock running.
An automated compliance platform that reduces the 2–3 week manual process to 48 hours. Built as a Tier 1 supplier solution with a clear expansion path to OEMs and vehicle-level compliance.
During calls with deputy managers at Ashok Leyland, I discovered they run a sophisticated QR/RFID tagging hierarchy: VIN → Parts → Suppliers, fully integrated across SAP, Cloud, and PLM systems. Real-time telemetry feeds back to the vehicle VIN for batch-level troubleshooting.
The gap: they can trace any part to any supplier, but cannot prove that supplier meets EU compliance requirements — mineral sourcing, UFLPA, PFAS, forced labour. OEMs have world-class infrastructure but no compliance connector. This validates both the Tier 1 pain and the Phase 2 OEM opportunity simultaneously.
Volvo evaluated TrusTrace's Supply Chain Mapping product for automotive compliance. It failed because it depended on one Tier 1 supplier to source compliance data across 300+ components — too much volume for any single T1 to chase and relay.
Our model inverts this: suppliers onboard directly (or via minimal-auth email flow) and see only their own slice of data. The platform consolidates centrally, avoiding the single point of failure. Clear compliance visibility then passes to OEMs without requiring the T1 to be the bottleneck.
The European Commission fined 15 major automakers and the ACEA a total of €458 million for colluding on end-of-life vehicle recycling — a compliance category considered far less acute than battery mineral sourcing. The enforcement risk for non-compliance with the Battery Regulation is credible and significant.
| Company | Technology | Position | Our Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Circulor | Blockchain + AI | $45M+, UK-based, OEM-focused | First-mover in India |
| Circularise | Blockchain + zero-knowledge proofs | Enterprise, Honda partnership | Tier 1 targeting: competitors chase OEMs, we target the burden-holder |
| Sourcemap | Cloud mapping + verification | US-based, mineral-heavy | Network effects: first Tier 1 customer locks in others |
| TrusTrace | Supply Chain Mapping | T1-supplier intensive | Shared responsibility: lightweight, passes ownership to individual tiers |
| OCX Labs | Automated compliance + DPP | India-first, Tier 1 entry | Only automated platform for Indian automotive compliance ecosystem |
Initial GTM is discovery-led. Target customer calls are scoped to validate two hypotheses:
With LG Energy / Tata Green / Reliance New Energy: "How long does mineral sourcing compliance take today? What does it cost?" — validating the pain and willingness to pay for automation.
With Ashok Leyland: "How do you currently verify battery supplier compliance?" — validating the Phase 2 OEM expansion opportunity and testing the compliance connector concept.
Next steps: user interviews with Tier 1 suppliers to understand data maturity depth, competitor solution and packaging research, and confirming OCX Labs' existing relationships with LG Energy, Tata Green, Reliance, Hyundai, or Tata Motors that can accelerate access.