In recent times, a number of automobile companies have launched or announced new electric passenger vehicles in India. Year-on-year sales are also rising, but they still account for a fraction of total passenger vehicle sales in the country. Consumer apprehensions around charging infrastructure and range anxiety are some of the reasons behind people still avoiding buying EVs in big numbers in India.
With the market set to expand with a significant number of new launches in the EV space, Tata Motors, which has been the market leader in passenger EVs plans to set up a network of mega chargers in collaboration with charge point operators (CPO) to offer super fast charging.
Since 2019, Tata Motors partnered with Tata Group companies to offer home charging solutions. It also launched an open collaboration framework in 2023 where it partnered with CPOs and oil marketing companies, focused on expanding charging infrastructure.
Over the past 15 months, the number of public charging points in the country has more than doubled to over 18,000. Further, there have been over 1.5 lakh private/ home charger installations and 2,500 community chargers, according to company officials. Tata Motors has also set up 750 chargers at its dealerships across 200 cities. But, the charging network will have to grow significantly more to drive EV adoption.
"Today, India is at the cusp of very rapid EV adoption, driven by a wide range of models and price parity in some of the segments. The breakneck growth that EVs will face in India will require acceleration of EV charging, which will need 400,000 charging points across home, community and public charging by 2027 to meet our EV adoption potential," said Shailesh Chandra, MD of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility.
As a part of its plans to expand the charging network further, under Open Collaboration 2.0, the maker of Nexon and Punch EV will install over 500 Tata.ev mega chargers in the first phase over two years strengthening its collaboration with CPOs. For this initiative, the company has partnered with four CPOs—Tata Power, Zeon, Statiq and ChargeZone. While these charging points will be open to vehicles of all brands, Tata Motors' customers will get priority access and tariff.
"Today there are 2.5 lakh EVs, in the next 3-4 years that number could be as much as 700,000 to even a million. Charging infrastructure needs to be accelerated to support that development. Accessibility of the charging infrastructure regardless of who the CPO is has to be seamless regardless of the OEM as well," said Balaje Rajan, chief strategy officer, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility.
The company refused to share the investment that it was making in expanding the charging infrastructure.
Apart from setting up mega chargers, Tata Motors will also introduce verified chargers so that consumers can easily locate reliable charging options. It will also launch a dedicated charging helpline for any charging-related queries.
