E-vehicles get an electric charge
An uptick in the availability of public charging infrastructure is gradually powering green transportation
There are many reasons the 30 KW Tata Nexon EV was the highest selling electric car in April. Compact SUVS are the flavour of the season but attractive design isn’t the only factor. One of the biggest bottlenecks for EV adoption is the charging infrastructure, and that seems to be changing for the better.
For the longest time, there has been a conundrum: Energy firms wouldn’t install public chargers because there weren’t enough cars. Buyers have not warmed to EVS because there aren’t enough charging points.
Over the past two years, however, the charging station network has doubled in India. There is now one public charging spot for every 31 new EVS sold in FY21, according to latest data.
As of March 2021, India had 4,305 charging stations — pooled in by power discoms, private players and original equipment manufacturers (OEMS).
The figure could shoot up to 7,000 over 18 months, according to JMK Research.
“The state-held players — EESL and REIL — would account for 50 per cent of the market share. This will be followed by some experienced and established private players — Volttic, Tata Motors, and Fortum,” the green energy-focussed research firm said in a recent report. EESL or Energy Efficiency Services Ltd is a joint venture of Power Finance Corp, NTPC, Power Grid Corp of India, and REC Ltd; and REIL or Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments Ltd is a joint venture between the Centre and the Rajasthan government.
Industry participants said the demand and viability of charging stations is improving, given the uptick in EV sales. In 2019-20, EV sales grew 20 per cent to 155,400 units, but dived in the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic year FY21 to 133,714. However, sales in the last couple of months have been the highest so far. There are other green signals: the pandemicinduced uptick in automobile sales; Tesla setting up an EV factory in Karnataka and a $300-million fresh investment in Ola Electric, which has some major plans.
Dozens of private and public-sector entities are participants in the charging infrastructure play (see chart). Ola, for instance, wants to create its own electric two-wheeler and charging network for its commercial vehicle fleet. IOCL set up charging points at its fuel pumps. Ather Energy, the biggest electric two-wheeler firm, is installing its own network of chargers.
Major firms have assumed pole position in the charging sub-categories, namely public charging for CVS, public charging for PVS, commercial charg- ing for CVS, mainly three-wheelers and home-based charging.
“We are targeting malls, tech-parks, society complexes and points along national highways,” said Akshit Bansal, co-founder of Statiq, an electric charging network. “The idea is to put chargers where people have something to do for an hour or so when the vehicle gets charged,” he added. Hero group-backed Ather has adopted a similar model. A spokesperson said its network now totalled 128 charging points (the highest density in Bengaluru at 33), with an aim to cross 300 by December. Each Ather also comes with a home charger that can be plugged into a wall socket.
The other major segment is electric three-wheelers used for commercial operations. Here, a number of companies, including Noida-based Volttic, have created large assets to charge EVS overnight. Experts said EV adoption is being led by this segment, which has seen major demand from lastmile players such as Big Basket, Amazon and Flipkart.
Cost-saving is the single biggest selling point of EVS. The 30 KW battery of the Tata Nexon, a Statiq spokesperson explained, takes just ~180 to charge and offers a range of 250 km. On the basis of cost-perkm, Nexon is cheaper than even Cng-powered engines that run at roughly ~2.5 per km.
The hurdle, then, is charging time. Two standards exist: AC charging and DC charging. DC charging is faster, but more expensive and degrades the battery over long use. That is why AC charging is more commonplace. But the difference in time is stark, and so is the cost difference. Tata Nexon will take one hour to fully charge on DC current, and 8-10 hours on AC current; A standard AC charger costs ~60,000-70,000, while a DC charger can cost upwards of ~10,00,000, according to the Statiq executive.
A bunch of solutions have come up for commercial twoand three-wheelers. Much work is being done to figure out the feasibility of the batteryswapping solution. Charge Zone, a Vadodara-based startup that offers DC chargers for electric busses, has recently acquired Ola Electric’s battery swapping assets.
Akshay Singhal, founder of nanotechnology firm Log9, disputes the long-term viability of battery swapping. “The batteries required are higher than the number of vehicles, which results in inventory lying vacant. Secondly, nobody is sure that the swapped battery will offer the same range — which is crucial when it comes to commercial operations.”
Here, Singhal pitches Log9’s proprietary “‘Rapid Charging Battery Packs” that can charge in 15 minutes and offer a true range of 60-80 km for threewheeler EVS. Log9, he says, signed contracts for pilots with Amazon, Vogo, Shadowfax, Delhivery, among others.
India is riding high on the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) I and FAME II schemes. Under FAME II, which has an outlay of ~10,000 crore, 3,397 charging stations were sanctioned of which 2,636 were approved as of 2020. They cover 62 cities, with the highest number in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In September 2020, the government invited tenders for 1,500 charging stations to be set up along 25 national highways.
Likewise, policy tweaks have encouraged private players. The most significant step has been to treat EV charging as a “service”, allowing anyone to set up and operate an EV charging station without a licence. In the Union Budget announced in July 2019, the GST rate on EV charger/charging stations was reduced from 18 to 5 per cent.
But the problem of time remains. “Despite the fact that the FAME-II policy gives importance to encourage charging stations, the government must give serious consideration to invest in battery swapping technology. Charging times for EVS take several hours for a full charge,” said Shashidhar of ORF in a note.
The hurdle is charging time. Two standards exist: AC charging and DC charging. DC charging is faster, but more expensive and degrades the battery over long use