EV Internship Interview Questions: What Ather, Ola, Tata Motors EV and KPIT Actually Ask

Internship interviews at Indian EV companies are more demanding than they used to be. The supply of interested candidates is high; the bar at marquee employers has risen. Here's the actual question set you'll face + how to prep in 2 weeks before your slot.

Resume-walk + project-deep-dive

Expect 10-15 minutes on your strongest academic / personal project. Interviewers want to see whether you can defend technical choices, explain trade-offs and own the limitations.

Prepare one 90-second pitch + one 5-minute deep-dive. Practise both aloud. The candidates who get callbacks lead with outcome ('I built X that does Y, measured Z') not with technology ('I used Python and Matlab and PyTorch').

Have a GitHub link + a 1-page write-up of your project ready to share. Many interviewers will pull up GitHub during the call.

Technical fundamentals (depend on track)

• Embedded / firmware: pointers, memory layout, interrupt handlers, RTOS basics, CAN-bus fundamentals.
• Power electronics: switching converters, MOSFET vs IGBT trade-offs, basic SPICE simulation, dead-time concepts.
• Battery / cell: OCV-SOC relationship, internal-resistance estimation, basic cell-safety failure modes.
• Motor / drives: PMSM vs BLDC vs IM, field-oriented control basics, basic Park + Clarke transforms.
• ADAS / software: C++ + ROS basics, perception pipeline overview, basic Kalman filter + EKF understanding.

EV-domain awareness

• Why is the BMS the highest-leverage system in an EV? Cite cell-balancing + state-of-charge + thermal-runaway-prevention roles.
• Walk through what happens during a DC fast-charge session at protocol level. Cover CCS / CHAdeMO handshake basics.
• Why does the choice of cathode chemistry (LFP vs NMC vs NCA) matter for cost + range + life?
• Name three Indian EV OEMs + what differentiates each technically.

Behavioural

• Why EV / why this company / why now?
• Tell me about a time you debugged a really tricky technical problem.
• Describe a team project where you disagreed with someone. How did you handle it?
• What's the EV industry going to look like in 5 years and what role do you want in it?

2-week prep plan

Days 1-3: read 3 papers / blog posts from your target company's engineering blog (Ather has a strong one; KPIT publishes regularly; Tata Elxsi has good case studies). Internalise the vocabulary they use.

Days 4-8: deep-dive on your strongest project. Write the 1-page summary, prep the 90-second pitch + 5-minute deep-dive. Have someone (a friend, a mentor on emobility.careers, a faculty member) interview you on it.

Days 9-12: technical-fundamentals refresh on your track. Pair with one EV-domain primer (Ather's BMS blog post + one BoltEV battery-pack deep dive on YouTube).

Days 13-14: behavioural prep. Write 4-5 STAR-format stories from your past you can pull from for any behavioural question. Sleep + show up calm.

Where to go from here

Internship interviews favour authentic depth on one or two projects + the ability to talk fluently in EV-domain vocabulary. Don't try to be a generalist — be specific about what you know, honest about what you don't, and visibly curious about the gap. The candidates who get offers consistently show all three.

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