How DLP Labs Is Building the Underwriting Infrastructure for Commercial EV Batteries – with a Boost from NationGraph

The company is playing the long game by developing relationships with public sector buyers of electric vehicle fleets while making opportunistic bets based on buying signals

The challenge: the battery is the new engine, and it has never been measurable in real time

Batteries represent 40 to 60% of an EV's value – a $25,000 to $175,000 component that defines vehicle economics. Yet battery performance has historically been a black box. Commercial auto policies exclude battery degradation. OEM warranties are focused on mechanical failure. When a battery fails outside warranty, the fleet operator is left holding a six-figure asset with no recourse – and the market response has been predictable: shorter loan terms, higher rates, and slower EV adoption.

DLP Labs is building underwriting infrastructure for commercial EV batteries. The platform turns live battery and vehicle telemetry, charging behavior, and degradation data into priced, underwriteable risk – which is what makes carrier-backed Battery Service Contracts possible in the first place.

Founder Ryan Kuhel – a licensed property and casualty insurance producer whose background includes partnerships roles at Meta, LinkedIn, and Microsoft – frames the market bluntly: "the most expensive component of an EV requires protection to reduce the total cost of ownership, improve financing, and increase residual value." Kuhel co-founded DLP Labs alongside Jeremy Lerner, PhD – a data scientist with multiple patents focused on vehicle telematics and prior experience at Ford Motor Company and FedEx. That combination – insurance paired with live battery data science – is what makes the infrastructure possible.

"Once you're in, selling to local governments is a really great long-term investment — the funding persists. NationGraph is key to our public sector strategy."

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What the platform unlocks

DLP Labs' Battery Protection Protocol – a software layer that continuously monitors State of Health, charging behavior, and degradation – enables carrier-backed Battery Service Contracts that address problems long overlooked in the commercial EV market:

Real-time measurement of battery condition. Continuous SoH monitoring and usage data give fleet operators, carriers, and lenders visibility into something that has always been opaque. Battery risk has never been uninsurable. It has just never been measurable in real time.

Protection against catastrophic battery loss. Because the platform's data layer enables parametric coverage tied to actual battery performance, carrier-backed Battery Service Contracts are designed to fill gaps that OEM warranties and commercial auto policies leave open – repair, replacement and proactive protection. 

Stronger collateral and better residual value. Continuously monitored batteries produce verifiable condition data for auction end-of-life and second-life buyers, which supports stronger residual values and better collateral. Better collateral is what allows lenders to consider longer EV loan terms – a structural cost savings for fleets regardless of whether a contract is ever triggered.

"Unlike a lobbyist or consultancy, NationGraph surfaced a real opportunity on day one,"

‍Ryan Kuhel, Founder, DLP Labs

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Playing the long game with state and local government

Public fleets are where the batteries are – and where the EV mandates bite hardest. New York and California have mandated electric vehicle transitions. More than 20 states carry active ZEV procurement mandates. USPS alone is purchasing 66,000 EVs. Agencies like NYC's Department of Citywide Administrative Services are projected to operate 28,000 EVs.Public fleets aren't buying EVs by choice – they're buying because they have to.

Government buying cycles are long, and RFPs are evolving. So Kuhel is playing the long game deliberately, stacking three moves in parallel: non-dilutive grant capital to fund R&D and earn credibility; small pilot wins to build past performance; and eventual placement on cooperative purchasing vehicles so agencies can buy without an RFP. The underlying platform has been actuarially validated with Perr & Knight, and DLP Labs sits in the Palantir Startup 002 cohort for live fleet-health ingestion. 

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First Signal, first pilot

DLP Labs' first win with NationGraph came on day one. A Signal surfaced at a town hall meeting where a rural high school was publicly discussing issues with its new electric school buses. Kuhel reached out to the superintendent, got routed to the head of transportation, and is now kicking off a program with the district.

"Unlike a lobbyist or consultancy, NationGraph surfaced a real opportunity on day one,"

Kuhel says.

The pilot is small on its own, but it's exactly the kind of zero-to-one reference that unlocks larger agencies later.

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Scaling from one pilot to tens of thousands of vehicles

DLP Labs uses NationGraph in three ways: Signals that surface which councils and boards are discussing EV fleets; grant funding flows that reveal which agencies are receiving EV investment dollars; and agency-level intel on fleets already grappling with battery cost exposure.

"I see us working with these smaller fleets, then growing into really large contracts," Kuhel says. "Once you're in, selling to local governments is a really great long-term investment — the funding persists. NationGraph is key to our public sector strategy."

For a company building the infrastructure for a new category, persistence is the thesis: educate the buyer, earn the pilot, stack the references, and be the default underwriting layer when the RFP finally gets written.