How charging infra can be improved for EV adoption – EQ Mag
Thomas Chacko, who drove an electric Tata Nexon across the country
Thomas Chacko, 73, and wife Geetha undertook a trip on their electric Tata Nexon from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, and back to their hometown in Cochin in October- November last year. A total of 9,200 km. Chacko wanted to prove it was feasible to do the full length in an EV. They did complete the trip, but not without some tensions. Two times the car had to be towed when it ran out of charge, but Chacko says it was because he misunderstood the terrain – he had expected to find some slopes where the battery would regenerate. There were fast-chargers along most of the route, but fewer in north India, and none in Madhya Pradesh and Kashmir. Slow-charging is much cheaper, but many of those sockets, including in auto service centres, lacked earthing, and the EV charger would not work on those. Chacko returned with a sense of accomplishment – his EV never broke down. But some of those who heard his accounts said they would be wary of doing a long drive on an EV.
Charging infrastructure is the problem, but efforts are on to improve it. Virendra Goyal, head of business development for EVs at Tata Power, the country’s largest charging infrastructure provider, says they have chargers from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and from Surat in the west, to Nagaon beyond Silchar in the east. Close to 4,000 charging points. The plan is to boost that number to 25,000 in the next five years.
Goyal says some pain points are being tackled with tech. Tata Power’s app allows users to locate charging stations near them and makes payment hassle-free. “You can also plan your trips now. For example, if you’re going from Mumbai to Pune, you can plan which charging points to stop at and know where the alternative charging points are,” he says. Chacko prefers the Plugshare app, which shows charging points of all providers.
But range and charging anxiety remains a big challenge, says Aravind Prasad, head of charging infrastructure at Ather Energy, which has over 900 charging points. Prasad says consumers today want a robust network of fast charging stations that gives them the confidence to reach their destination without worrying about running out of charge. For that to happen, he says, various stakeholders need to collaborate – like government entities, utility companies, and real estate owners. “The ability of various public private partnership (PPP) models will be an important factor in determining the success of EV infrastructure,” he says.
There is also the question of standardisation of chargers, and whether AC or DC chargers should be made the norm, says Niraj Rajmohan, co-founder and CTO of EV bike maker Ultraviolette. The majority of last-mile charging infrastructure for EVs today, he says, is smart AC charging, and this has kept pace with the adoption of electric two- and three-wheelers. But there is a need, he says, to incentivise wider adoption of fast DC charging standards (they charge much faster). “Bringing in commonality and consistency in charging standards for both hardware and software will ensure safe and reliable charging infrastructure,” he says.
There are also safety concerns. Energy-dense EV batteries and charging infrastructure need to be tweaked to fit India’s unique conditions, says Akash Gupta, co-founder & CEO of Zypp Electric. “India is large, our temperature ranges are different, monsoons are very heavy in some cities. So, the Indianisation of the entire EV concept needs to happen and then the technology needs to be tweaked according to Indian use cases and behaviour,” he says.
Sachidanand Upadhyay, MD & CEO of charging infrastructure provider Lord’s Mark Industries, says setting up such infrastructure requires high investment and many approvals, and that to boost its growth, the government needs to prioritise the development of an enabling policy framework. “All the key authorities in charge of power distribution, urban and rural planning, highway development, etc, need to be aligned with the larger goal,” he says.
The charger point to EV ratio in India, Updadhyay says, now stands at 1:130. This, he says, needs to be at least 1:30 in the next five years.
Some like Aravind Mani, co-founder of River, which is working on an electric scooter, are confident this will happen. “India is at the forefront of a global technological revolution with the brightest brains in technology working around the clock to improve the current EV charging infrastructure,” he says.
Source: timesofindia
