50 Interview Questions for Electric Vehicle Industry — With Answer Pointers

Comprehensive question bank for EV interviews — technical, behavioural, and company-fit — across battery, motor, charging, software and product roles.

This is a comprehensive question bank covering technical fundamentals, role-specific deep dives and behavioural questions you'll encounter at every Indian EV company. Use it for last-week prep — go through every block, write your own 30-second answer for each, and rehearse out loud.

Battery — 10 questions

Explain the difference between LFP and NMC chemistries.
What's the SEI layer and why does it matter for cycle life?
How would you size a 60-kWh pack for a 4W EV?
What's thermal runaway and how do you prevent propagation?
Walk through AIS 156 propagation test requirements.
What's the role of formation cycling in cell manufacturing?
Explain SOC, SOH and SOP — and how a BMS computes each.
What's the trade-off between energy density and safety?
How does silicon-graphite anode improve over pure graphite?
What's the typical pack cost split between cells, BMS, thermal and enclosure?

Motor & power electronics — 10 questions

Compare PMSM, induction and switched-reluctance motors for EVs.
What's FOC and why is it the dominant control strategy?
Why use SiC over Si for traction inverters?
What's field weakening and when is it active?
How do you size DC-link capacitance?
What's MTPA and why does it matter?
Explain gate-driver dead-time and ringing.
What's the difference between sensored and sensorless control?
How do you mitigate EMI in a 75-kHz switching inverter?
Walk through inverter efficiency at low vs high torque.

Charging — 8 questions

What's the difference between CCS-2, CHAdeMO and MCS?
Explain how OCPP 1.6 differs from 2.0.1.
What does ISO 15118 plug-and-charge enable?
Walk through the AC charging sequence from EV to charger.
What's the role of a CMS in a charging network?
How do you size a DC fast charger for a fleet depot?
Explain V2G architecture at hardware + software level.
What are the safety interlocks in a public DC charger?

Software & systems — 10 questions

Explain AUTOSAR Classic architecture.
What's ISO 26262 and the ASIL classification?
Walk through a CAN frame structure.
How would you design an OTA flow that survives a half-flashed update?
What's ASPICE compliance?
Explain a Kalman filter in the BMS state-estimation context.
How do you partition safety-relevant code from non-safety?
What's UDS and how is it used in service?
Describe a HIL test setup.
What's MISRA-C and why does it matter?

Behavioural — 12 questions

Why EV? Why now?
Why this specific company?
Tell me about a project you led end-to-end.
Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned.
Describe a conflict with a manager and how you resolved it.
How do you handle ambiguous requirements?
Walk me through a difficult technical decision you made.
How do you stay current with EV industry developments?
What's your view on India's EV trajectory over the next 5 years?
What's a strong opinion you hold loosely about EVs?
Tell me about a time you had to learn something fast.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Where to go from here

Pick the 20 most relevant questions for your specific role and rehearse 60-second answers for each. Time yourself — most candidates over-explain. Tight, concrete answers beat long-winded ones every time.

Make this real: create a free emobility.careers account to match with EV jobs, see live salary medians and unlock 200+ JD templates. Want hands-on training? Check out the AICTE-approved EV programs at DIYguru — the largest EV academy in India with placement support across OEMs, charging operators and Tier-1 suppliers.