Hajela will oversee the electric light commercial vehicle segment at Jupiter Electric Mobility
This comes nearly two months after Jupiter Electric Mobility acquired Log9’s railway battery and electric truck battery divisions in October 2024
An alumnus of IIT-Roorkee, Hajela cofounded Log9 in 2015. The startup manufactures EV batteries and other energy storage solutions
Battery manufacturing startup Log9 Materials’ cofounder and chief operating officer, Kartik Hajela, has resigned from the company. He left the deeptech startup to take up the new role of a director at Jupiter Electric Mobility (JEM).
At Log9, Hajela played a key role in developing advanced battery technologies designed for the Indian market. Meanwhile, at JEM, he will now oversee the electric light commercial vehicle (e-LCV) segment.
“… As a part of the part-merger of Log9 and JEM, I have joined JEM as a Director ending my 7 years long journey at Log9, contributing to the last mile electric commercial fleet space… I pass on the baton to the awesome leaders in Log 9 and will now as a new beginning focus on creating the next flywheel in the EV space which is ripe for disruption, e-LCV in India,” Hajela said in a post on LinkedIn.
An alumnus of IIT-Roorkee, Hajela, along with Akshay Singhal and Pankaj Sharma, founded Log9 in 2015. The startup manufactures EV batteries and other energy storage solutions. It competes with the likes of Hero Electric-backed Exponent Energy and Ather Energy.
The latest development comes a couple of months after JEM, a subsidiary of Jupiter Wagons Ltd (JWL), acquired the technology and business assets of the railway battery and electric truck battery divisions of Log9 in October 2024.
The strategic deal comprised the acquisition of Log9’s engineering and production teams, as well as its manufacturing facility in Bengaluru’s Devanahalli. Hajela’s appointment is part of this transaction.
At the time, Jupiter Wagons said that the move would enhance JEM’s capabilities in battery production, a critical component for its electric light commercial vehicles (LCVs), and expand its offerings in the railway sector. This, the listed company said, would position it to support various applications within Indian Railways.
Notably, JEM and Log9 have previously collaborated on battery products for Indian Railways, securing an order for Vande Bharat batteries in partnership with Siemens.
Going forward, Hajela, in his LinkedIn post, said that JEM plans to launch several new initiatives in the coming months and deploy vehicles across eight cities in the next quarter.
“Multiple programs lined up to be launched in the coming month. The foundation has been slowly set for the last 2 years from distribution to production to service and the coming quarter will be exciting to see the results on roads. Starting our deployments across 8 cities in the next quarter,” he added.
The part merger and the departure of the cofounder come amid hectic developments at Log9. Earlier this year, it was reported that the battery manufacturing startup had delayed the salaries of all its employees for the month of January and fired 115 contractual employees.
At the time, the startup attributed the layoffs to automation, which led to reduction of the manual workforce. Thereafter, it sold part of its assets to JEM.
In April, Log9 rebranded its mobility business as ‘Amphion’ and touted the new offering as a full-stack EV asset management company.
