India's Action Plan for EV Charging Stations across the Nation

There has been a rise in the number of electric car sales in India in the last quarter. We are seeing few electric cars running on roads these days which leads us to think about the state of charging infrastructure in India. Buying an electric car without sufficient charging facilities could land us in dire situations. In fact lack of sufficient charging facilities is one of the major challenges for the faster adoption of EVs in India, other than steep prices.

To fast-track the adoption of EVs in India, the Centre has plans of setting up 22,000 chargers at petrol pumps and 70,000 across the country in the next few years. Outlets of IOC and BPCL have vowed to install 17,000 charging points over the coming years. According to the Ministry of Power guidelines, there should be at least one EV charging station at every 25 km on both sides of a highway. The national highways authority is adding a charging station for every 40 km-60 km of national highways. It further states that there should be at least one EV charging station, for long-range and heavy-duty EVs, at every 100 km on both sides of a highway and in a grid of 3 km by 3 km for the cities. The ministry is planning to start building EV charging stations in highways, cities, and then in rural areas. Note AC charging is slow while DC charging is fast. The EV charging infrastructure market in India can be segmented into Home Charging, Commercial Charging, and Public Charging basis the end-use. Home charging is a type of AC charging.

Image Credit: Niti.gov.in

The Power ministry has sanctioned more than 2,800 electric vehicle charging stations in 68 cities across 25 states/UTs and over 1,500 charging stations across nine expressways and 16 highways under FAME II Scheme. A PLI scheme of ~Rs.18,000 crore has been planned for the production of lithium batteries in the country.

Image Credit: Niti.gov.in

The nation aims at 30% of private cars, 70% of commercial vehicles, 40% of buses, and 80% of two and three-wheelers to go electric by 2030. According to stats, India would be needing over 4,00,000 charging stations for more than 20,00,000 EVs running by 2026. Tata Motors, the maker of Nexon and Tigor electric cars in India plans to establish EV charging solutions across homes, offices, malls, hotels, retail outlets, etc. The company has already established a network of 1,000 chargers across the nation. One can access Tata’s network of public EV charging points across the country on EZ Charge mobile app. The company provides end-to-end customized solutions – Backend Power Infrastructure, EV chargers of different charging standards, charger installation, annual maintenance, charger management software platform subscription, and mobile app.