NEW DELHI: Car companies are preparing a grid of chargers, similar to telecom towers, to power electric vehicles as top players, such as Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra and JSW MG, start expanding their green offerings.
An assessment of preparedness by companies shows almost all manufacturers beefing up the public charging network, including at their own dealerships, and tying up with external vendors. Apart from these initiatives, a customer already gets a home charger.
Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer (marketing & sales) at Maruti, said creating a charging infrastructure is paramount before the company launches its first EV eVitara. “A customer needs peace of mind and thus, while getting a home charger, he or she will also need access to a robust public charging system, especially when travelling between cities,” he told TOI.
While Maruti will target 100 cities in the initial launch phase, it will set up a charging network in around 1,000 cities. “It will be like the set-up of telecom towers. We want to promise after-sales support and charging infra. Customers should travel beyond cities without hassle.”
Maruti wants a public charger in a radius of 5-10 km for a customer. “This even when our study says that 95% of existing EVs use home charger.”
A robust public charging infra is also needed as over 90% of car users are estimated to not have a fixed parking space. “This means that it will be difficult for them to have a dedicated place for installing home charging and bill metering. Thus, to take EVs mainstream, a strong public charging set-up is required” an industry executive said.
Tata Motors, the largest player in the EV segment, has a relatively-bigger network. “TATA.ev has installed over 700 DC and AC fast chargers at dealer outlets across 250+ cities and towns. We also have a home charging network, with 1.4 lakh installations nationwide,” Balaje Rajan, chief strategy officer (Tata Motors’ PV and electric mobility) said.
Tata is expanding further through an ‘open collaboration’ framework. “We have partnered with the top eight charge point operators, who have installed more than 10,000 public chargers,” Rajan said.
JSW MG has deployed 25,000 charging touchpoints, including public and residential space, CEO Rajeev Chaba said. “Under MG Charge initiative, we are steadily progressing toward our target of 1,000 community charging stations, while our eHub initiative integrates over 7,500 charging points from 30 prominent operators.”
Veejay Nakra, Mahindra’s automotive vivision president, said the company is working on setting up ‘semi-public’ chargers with housing societies and office complexes for common EV charging stations. Mahindra is also bullish on the PM e-Drive scheme that proposes to set up an additional 22,100 fast public chargers (60kW and above) in top 40 cities and highways.
Companies say govt’s support for oil marketing companies under the FAME 2 scheme will also lead to deployment of another 22,000 chargers.
