India, July 4 -- Social media feeds over the past week have been flooded with videos of people accessing the battery management systems (BMS) of electric rickshaws and loaders to remotely disable the vehicles. While the videos may have amused the pranksters and viewers, they left drivers stranded, disrupted trips, and raised concerns about the security of connected EV systems.

At the centre of the controversy are the BMS that communicate through widely used mobile applications such as BAT BMS, Lossigy and Epoch Li-ion, with a few of these apps being of Chinese origin. These apps connect to the BMS over Bluetooth, allowing users to monitor battery health, charge levels, voltage, temperature, and discharge behaviour.

A BMS is an embedded ...