I want to be clear from the outset. I’ve never been a car enthusiast. My driving history includes a hand-me-down Volvo with a hole in the floorboards and a series of aggressively practical vehicles, including a VW Golf and a Mazda SUV in which I hauled my family around for 12 years. Then I leased a BMW i4 electric car.

What drew me to the i4? Unlike other electric vehicles, BMWs don’t look like something out of the Jetsons; I like that they’re understated cars that happen to be electric. I liked that they’re far less common than other EVs in Northern California. Plus, the i4 comes in something like a dozen colors, including “Brooklyn Gray,” which – I know I sound ridiculous – delighted me in ways that Tesla’s handful of options never could. I’d read online that early adopters were having software issues, but with visions of my sleek new BMW dancing in my head, I conveniently filed that information away. Those first few drives felt exhilarating, too. The car was beautiful, the ride was smooth, and I felt like we were going places.

Nearly two years later, I’m doing something I never thought I’d do: eagerly awaiting the end of a lease on a luxury car because its software is such a disaster that it makes my rusted-out Volvo look like a paragon of reliability.

A love story gone awry

Let me count the ways this relationship has gone wrong, starting with the most basic function: getting into my own car. On multiple occasions, I’ve stood in parking lots, unable to unlock its doors with my phone despite the BMW Digital Key being specifically designed for this purpose. This sounds trivial until you’re juggling melting groceries while looking like you’re trying to steal your own car.

Digital key issues have become so widespread that BMW owners have at times shared elaborate multi-step workarounds that read like instructions for disarming a bomb: “1. Open the BMW app on your phone and use it to unlock the door. 2. Sign in with your BMW ID in iDrive. 3. Place your iPhone in the vehicle’s charging tray. 4. Wait for the digital key to reappear in the Wallet app. 5. Double-click the side button, authenticate with Face ID, and—finally—start the car.”

The user profile system is another exercise in futility. I’ve been unable to create guest profiles without being demoted to the bottom of the user hierarchy. What this means in practice is that if anyone else drives my car – even once – the vehicle will grab their phone and playlist the moment they’re within Bluetooth range. BMW has over-engineered their profile system to the point where it requires explicit linking steps that should really happen automatically.

The car’s CarPlay integration ranges from poor to actively dangerous. Software updates routinely break CarPlay functionality, requiring complete reboots of its iDrive infotainment system. The reverse camera issue is particularly maddening; put the car in reverse while using CarPlay navigation, and when you shift back to drive, you’re dumped onto the home screen instead of returning to your directions. 

The backup camera itself is practically useless in low light conditions, and the screen frequently becomes scorching hot to the touch.

Then there’s the lights issue. Unless I remember to manually lock the car after walking away from it, I’ll occasionally notice later that the exterior lights are still ablaze in my driveway. I thought it might be human error the first time it happened. By the third time, I realized that it’s a “feature” where the i4 enters a “pseudo-sleep mode” that keeps lights and other systems running indefinitely. Multiple owners report the same issue: park the car, walk away, return later to find their vehicle lit up like a beacon and draining the battery. 

Beyond the feeling on a near-daily basis that the car has amnesia, there are legitimate safety concerns. The 2022 i4 was subject to six recalls in its first year, including one so serious that BMW told owners their cars were fire risks when parked and advised them to “stop driving this vehicle immediately.” Since then, other recalls have included battery control units that can cause a sudden loss of power.

BMW releases software updates for the i4 approximately every few months, but the process is fraught with issues. Updates routinely break connected services, causing owners to lose access to traffic information, weather data, remote parking functions, and even the MyBMW app connectivity. 

The over-the-air update system itself is unreliable, with owners reporting updates that get stuck at various percentages for days, forcing trips to dealers for manual installation. 

What’s especially galling is that BMW positions these vehicles as premium products. If you’re buying rather than leasing, the i4 starts at over $50,000, with well-equipped models pushing $70,000 or more. Meanwhile, owners of less expensive vehicles, including Hyundais and Lexus models, report bulletproof connectivity and seamless user experiences. 

I’m not saying the company rushed these cars to market without adequately testing their digital ecosystem, then decided to treat their customers as beta testers without taking their well-being into account, but I’m also not not saying that.

I genuinely wanted this relationship to work. The i4 is gorgeous, drives beautifully, and represents everything I thought I wanted in an electric vehicle. But I can’t continue a relationship where the most basic functions – unlocking doors, connecting my phone, getting directions – require the patience of a saint. (I do not have the patience of a saint.)

Even my tech-savvy husband, who is usually the first to suggest user error, recently emerged from the car after a particularly frustrating software meltdown and announced that he would “need to meditate for a bit.”

Car ownership shouldn’t be a constant source of aggravation. I shouldn’t have to maintain a mental database of workarounds for features that should just work. I shouldn’t dread software updates because they might break something that was (mostly) functional.

So BMW, I’ve had it. You made a gorgeous car, then sabotaged it with software so crummy that it’s almost comical. I thought we’d drive into the sunset together. Instead, I’m driving my i4 back to the dealership as my lease is over. I’m surprised to say I can’t wait.

Lithium has become the default choice for battery-powered systems, but its limitations — from volatile supply chains to short lifespans — are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Offgrid Energy Labs, a deep-tech startup based in India, wants to make lithium less central, especially when it comes to battery storage.

The seven-year-old startup, incubated at IIT Kanpur, has developed a proprietary zinc-bromine-based battery system as an alternative to lithium-ion technology. Called ZincGel, it delivers 80–90% of the energy efficiency of conventional lithium batteries, but at a significantly lower levelized cost of storage, the startup said.

As power demand grows worldwide, countries are ramping up efforts to expand renewable energy storage. India, as a prominent nation in this regard, aims to increase its non-fossil energy capacity tenfold — from 50 gigawatts to 500 gigawatts — by 2030. New Delhi is also targeting 236 gigawatt-hours of battery energy storage capacity by 2031–32 and announced a ₹54 billion (roughly $612 million) funding planin June to develop 30 gigawatt-hour battery storage systems in the country. However, like many global markets, India faces a key challenge: China’s dominance over the lithium supply chain.

Offgrid Energy Labs is betting that its ZincGel battery technology can ease supply constraints by using widely available materials and offering a more cost-effective alternative to lithium-based systems.

Now, the startup has raised $15 million in Series A funding to scale up its operations. It plans to build a 10-megawatt-hour demonstration facility in the UK, expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2026, and begin commercializing ZincGel in the quarters that follow — with a gigafactory in India planned as the next phase.

“Not only should we be addressing a gap in the market from an application standpoint, but we should also make it financially viable, because there have been technologies and batteries in the past globally, which have the solution, but they’re so expensive that they’re not widely adopted,” said Tejas Kusurkar, co-founder and CEO of Offgrid Energy Labs, in an interview.

Kusurkar, who has a Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur, co-founded Offgrid Energy Labs in 2018 at the institute’s Startup Incubation and Innovation Center, along with Brindan Tulachan (also a Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur), Rishi Srivastava, and Ankur Agarwal. The team observed that while lithium batteries are well-suited for mobility, the stationary storage market was underserved — and needed batteries that are safer, more resilient, and built on a supply chain that is easier to access, Kusurkar told TechCrunch.

The startup spent its first six years developing battery technology and has so far secured more than 25 IP families and over 50 IP assets across markets, including the U.S., U.K., India, as well as China, Australia, and Japan. The battery is based on zinc-bromide chemistry with a proprietary water-based electrolyte, resulting in a low risk of fire.

ZincGel is also capable of handling longer discharges (6–12 hours) multiple times throughout its lifetime and can last twice as long as a typical lithium-ion battery, Kusurkar said. Furthermore, the battery utilizes a carbon-based cathode for both fast charging and discharging.

Zinc in batteries is not a new concept, and some companies have already offered zinc-bromide-based batteries, including the Nasdaq-listed EOS Energy Enterprises. However, Kusurkar noted that Offgrid Energy Labs uses its patented assets that help bring down the cost. The ZincGel batteries can also reduce the need for using graphite, which helps bring down their production cost.

“Ultimately, customers care about the same performance, better price, or better performance, same price,” Srivastava told TechCrunch.

Offgrid Energy Labs’ technology is also designed to allow for tweaking or sub-optimizing the battery based on the application. This means that these zinc batteries can operate independently of environmental conditions and provide energy storage even at temperatures as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius, Srivastava said.

The startup is targeting industries with net-zero goals that want to maximize renewable energy use by integrating battery storage. Its batteries are also being explored for applications such as peak shifting and decentralized, off-grid energy solutions. Shell — which invested in Offgrid during its seed round through its corporate venture arm — and Tata Power are among the early testers. The start is also in talks with global players, including Europe’s Enel Group, to develop batteries tailored to their specific use cases.

So far, Offgrid Energy Labs has built its battery tech manually at a tinkering lab in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida. However, the startup plans to leverage its facility in the U.K. to demonstrate its technology to early customers next year.

The UK facility will have a carbon footprint 50% lower than that of a typical lithium battery gigafactory, Srivastava said, adding that the startup has opted for simpler manufacturing processes to reduce both capital and operational expenses.

Asked why the U.K. — and not India — was chosen for its first facility, Srivastava said, as Europe offers a strong ecosystem and is already a hub for battery manufacturing. The startup already has co-founders Kusurkar and Tulachan based in the U.K. to help with local operations. Still, the startup sees India as one of its key markets once the batteries are ready for commercialization in 2026.

The Series A round was led by Archean Chemicals, a Chennai-based specialty chemicals manufacturer, which now holds a 21% stake in the startup, along with participation from Ankur Capital.

Srivastava told TechCrunch that Archean’s participation is a strategic alignment, as the publicly listed company has considerable expertise in bromine manufacturing and supply chain management.

The startup is valued at around $58 million post-money.