One of the country’s largest power generation and distribution companies, Tata Power, is betting big on the electric vehicle revolution, with an ambitious plan to install 7,000 charging stations by the end of this fiscal, as per Virendra Goyal, the head of business development (EV Charging). In an interview with DH’s Anjali Jain, Goyal further expanded on the company’s plans for battery swapping, expansion plans in south India and the emerging trends in India’s EV charging space.
Edited Excerpts.
What is Tata Power’s current penetration in terms of EV charging points?
We are active in all the four segments of business, namely bus fleet, home charging, public and semi-public. The charging points which are serving clients are approximately about 4,300 to 4,500. and we have further about 1,000 plus charging points at different stages of completion. Some are pending for installation, some are in the process of getting power supply.
We have covered about 390 cities and towns. And if we add the remaining 1,000 plus charging points which are under completion, it will cross 500 cities and towns. We have created a presence in over 350 highways.
The number which we expect to reach by the end of this financial year is approximately 7,000 charging points across India, and 25,000 by 2028. But it also depends a lot on the vehicle sales, the adoption, and the EV utilization levels.
What are your plans for the Southern states going forward?
We currently have 650 charging stations in Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. In the future we have a very high focus on the South as it is the EV capital and so we are targeting to cover all the important highways.
We have identified certain highways, including Bengaluru-Belagavi, Bengaluru-Mysuru, Bengaluru to Kochi via Coimbatore or Bengaluru to Coorg via Mysuru. This is based on feedback from EV owners or tourist attractions, the religious places where people travel. Our priority is to cover all these important highways so that inter-city travel becomes easier.
We are also creating a public charging network. Bengaluru already has about 60-70 fast chargers deployed, and there are roughly 200 charging stations in all of Karnataka. We want to create a presence in each of the uncovered cities, if at all there is any.
How are you solving the issue of lack of availability of home chargers?
We have introduced something called a community charging in places or residential societies in places like Bombay, Bangalore, Chennai, wherever there is difficulty in installation of home chargers which is either due to non-availability of permission, or scenarios where there is open carpark or the car park is very far. The semi-public charging inside a residential society is meant for the occupants of that society plus the visitors.
There are societies where we installed few chargers proactively without even one EV car.
But then after the charger was installed, we got very good feedback from the society that people adopted EV cars because of a lack of range anxiety. Moreover, it continues to be our infrastructure. We take care of installation and maintenance. There is a lot of interest which is now being shown by corporates in installing chargers for their employees. So we have also deployed in some of the identified offices of various banks.
Which vehicle segment has seen the most uptake for Tata Power’s charging services?
Our focus is primarily on the four-wheelers and the bus segment. Two-wheelers primarily get serviced by the home charger, although there are ultrafast charges installed by few OEMs and other charge point operators. We are also working on two-wheelers from vehicle sales penetration. Of course, two-wheeler sales have been the highest, but last year EV cars witnessed about 1% car sales and that's going to be seeing an increase. We are also seeing a lot of movement on the bus segment which till now was the public segment, but then now a lot of private organizations have also started looking at it. Even the three-wheeler commercial segment is getting a lot of traction which is being driven by the ecommerce players.
What are your thoughts on battery swapping?
It is most suitable for two-wheelers and three-wheelers. In the case of cars, buses and trucks, it is difficult because of the size and weight of the battery. Even the location where the battery is fixed, it's very difficult to pick up a 300 kg battery and put it up to charge and then place a fresh one. In the case of two-wheelers, it's at early stages. The standardisation of battery size is yet to take place, and which is I think under advanced stages and it is expected to happen soon.