African EV Business is startup operating a swappable battery network for electric vehicles. With a fleet of 200 batteries in operation, African EV Business provides elective vehicle businesses with the infrastructure to swap out exhausted batteries, maintaining seamless operation. The company’s model includes leasing a significant portion of its fleet to other businesses, which rely on the network for battery replacements and real-time monitoring. African EV Business’s ambition to scale their operations was limited by significant technical challenges, particularly in managing and harmonising their IoT infrastructure with their central cloud service - which is where Daedalus came in.

Daedalus was uniquely positioned to support African EV Business due to our deep technical expertise in managing large-scale IoT and data systems. The challenge African EV Business faced is common to both startups and larger organisations dealing with rapid scaling, but it requires a nuanced, startup-friendly approach to address it effectively. Unlike larger firms, which would have proposed solutions too costly and inappropriate for a startup, Daedalus was able to provide tailored, cost-effective solutions, all while sharing our knowledge to empower African EV Business’s local team, thereby ensuring the solution would be sustainable in the long term.

African EV Business’s main challenge was the operational vulnerability caused by the network drop-off issue when a battery fully loses charge, making it impossible to track that battery’s status. This disconnection from the IoT network, if prolonged, created a significant risk to the company’s operations and expansion plans. The data pipeline architecture was inefficient, with multiple systems unable to communicate effectively with one another, further exacerbating the issue. For African EV Business, addressing this problem was critical to scaling their operations confidently and securely, but they needed help with how best to approach the challenge.

Effectively this boiled down to three main areas that needed addressing:

• Scaling Issues: The inability to track batteries accurately caused a lack of resilience, preventing the company from scaling confidently.
• Technical Barriers: The company had existing IoT infrastructure that dropped off the network when batteries fully discharged, creating operational inefficiencies and security risks.
• Lack of Experience: The African EV Business team, while talented startup operators, didn’t yet have the collective practical experience of fixing issues of this scale, involving quite so much data - but Daedalus did.

Our approach began by understanding African EV Business’s internal processes and the challenges they were facing. We invested time upfront in engaging with the team to uncover pain points and truly understand the specific needs of the business. This comprehensive understanding was essential before we could propose any technical solutions.

• Initial Audit and Stakeholder Engagement: We conducted interviews with African EV Business’s team to get an in-depth understanding of their existing systems and challenges. We also set up access to dashboards and other internal systems to perform a full technical audit.
• Technical Audit and Solution Architecture: After gathering insights, we conducted a thorough audit of their systems and data pipeline architecture. This audit not only identified weaknesses but also highlighted opportunities for improvement. We then produced a detailed document outlining:
  
  
  • What needs to be fixed
  • Why the issues existed
  • How to implement solutions with the current team
  • How to address the tech debt created over time
• Collaborative and Practical Approach: Throughout the process, we maintained a highly collaborative approach with African EV Business’s team, offering training and walkthroughs to ensure they could apply the solutions independently. The focus was not just on fixing the immediate issues but also on building long-term capabilities.
• Comprehensive Solution Delivery: Our team developed blueprints of the existing architecture, designed to be user-friendly for the local team. Video walkthroughs and detailed training materials were provided to ensure effective knowledge transfer and application of the new systems.