<p>Bengaluru: The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (BESCOM), exploring ways to ramp up the charging infrastructure in the state, is mulling reserving land for it to encourage private participation in the process. </p> <p>Speaking at an event on Wednesday, BESCOM Managing Director, Shiva Shankara N, acknowledged, “The state needs to enhance capacity. We are collaborating with private players, and also identifying government plans. Maybe, I will come out with some policy where we will identify some land, reserve it, and call private players to partner with us.” </p> <p>Karnataka currently has 5,200 charging stations, the highest in India, he said, even though Delhi and Mumbai outperform Bengaluru on a city-level. </p> <p>Around 200 of Karnataka’s charging stations are by BESCOM, though they are mostly slow chargers. Shankara stressed on the need to shift to fast chargers.</p> <p>The other 5,000 are by private players, and about 4,000 of them are by EV charging network Bolt.Earth.</p> <p>Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the event, Shankara, however, noted a challenge in there not being enough vehicles on the road to keep up with the infrastructure.</p>.<p>S Raghav Bharadwaj, CEO of Bolt.Earth, added, “That problem is very apparent in four-wheelers. The number of units of four-wheelers is extremely low, even today. However, I think this year and next year is the inflection point for four-wheelers.”</p> <p>He pointed out the anomaly in the supply-demand of the charging infrastructure. “When you look at availability and access to fast charging, the two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments have been lagging behind very significantly at this point. That's kind of crazy because in terms of unit sales, two- and three-wheelers pretty much dwarf the four-wheeler units in the country today,” Bharadwaj stated.</p> <p>Grid infrastructure, Bharadwaj added, is a big limitation in India in the industry. </p> <p>While Bengaluru-based Bolt.Earth works with several governments, Bharadwaj elaborated that it is Delhi’s EV policies that have been the most-supportive, with Karnataka ranking second. </p> <p>“If you look at the markets in the West, most of them are four-wheeler dominated. When you come to India, 80% of all the vehicles sold in India are two-wheelers. If I include three-wheelers, that's probably 90%. So now, while there is a lot of focus on the four-wheeler markets, I still feel like there is a long way to go for us. There is an inflection point. From here on, I don't really see the need for any great incentives for any of these OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to really capture this market and go ahead and start to sell,” Bharadwaj told <em>DH</em>.</p>
<p>Bengaluru: The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (BESCOM), exploring ways to ramp up the charging infrastructure in the state, is mulling reserving land for it to encourage private participation in the process. </p> <p>Speaking at an event on Wednesday, BESCOM Managing Director, Shiva Shankara N, acknowledged, “The state needs to enhance capacity. We are collaborating with private players, and also identifying government plans. Maybe, I will come out with some policy where we will identify some land, reserve it, and call private players to partner with us.” </p> <p>Karnataka currently has 5,200 charging stations, the highest in India, he said, even though Delhi and Mumbai outperform Bengaluru on a city-level. </p> <p>Around 200 of Karnataka’s charging stations are by BESCOM, though they are mostly slow chargers. Shankara stressed on the need to shift to fast chargers.</p> <p>The other 5,000 are by private players, and about 4,000 of them are by EV charging network Bolt.Earth.</p> <p>Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the event, Shankara, however, noted a challenge in there not being enough vehicles on the road to keep up with the infrastructure.</p>.<p>S Raghav Bharadwaj, CEO of Bolt.Earth, added, “That problem is very apparent in four-wheelers. The number of units of four-wheelers is extremely low, even today. However, I think this year and next year is the inflection point for four-wheelers.”</p> <p>He pointed out the anomaly in the supply-demand of the charging infrastructure. “When you look at availability and access to fast charging, the two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments have been lagging behind very significantly at this point. That's kind of crazy because in terms of unit sales, two- and three-wheelers pretty much dwarf the four-wheeler units in the country today,” Bharadwaj stated.</p> <p>Grid infrastructure, Bharadwaj added, is a big limitation in India in the industry. </p> <p>While Bengaluru-based Bolt.Earth works with several governments, Bharadwaj elaborated that it is Delhi’s EV policies that have been the most-supportive, with Karnataka ranking second. </p> <p>“If you look at the markets in the West, most of them are four-wheeler dominated. When you come to India, 80% of all the vehicles sold in India are two-wheelers. If I include three-wheelers, that's probably 90%. So now, while there is a lot of focus on the four-wheeler markets, I still feel like there is a long way to go for us. There is an inflection point. From here on, I don't really see the need for any great incentives for any of these OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to really capture this market and go ahead and start to sell,” Bharadwaj told <em>DH</em>.</p>