Companies providing charging stations are seeing an increase in demand from real estate developers and resident welfare associations (RWAs) in several cities as more and more people are buying electric vehicles (EVs). While companies are forming partnerships with builders for projects that are still in the planning stages, demand is also arising from housing societies & existing apartments that are willing to invest in EV charging stations.

The major companies in the electric vehicle charger market in India include EESL, Tata Power, Magenta Power, Fortum, ABB India, Ather Energy, EVRE, Okaya, Amara Raja, etc.

Factors affecting EV charging industry:

The significant factors impacting the growth of the electric vehicle charger industry in a country include government regulations to limit environmental pollution, an increase in market penetration of electric vehicles, and government initiatives for the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Also, a limited number of EV charging stations, lack of standardization of EV charging, rise in demand for luxury & feature-enabled vehicles are also anticipated to have a definite impact on the electric vehicle charger market.

Product launch, partnership & acquisition are the key growth strategies adopted by the majority of the key players operating in the electric vehicle charger market in order to expand their business.

The high cost involved in the construction of EVCS infrastructure is hindering the overall market growth and could be prohibitive to the creation of a well-functioning industry. For different sorts of vehicles, such as 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, passenger vehicles, and commercial vehicles, different types of charging infrastructure are necessary.

EV charging standards in India:

All the manufacturers in India are manufacturing CCS type AC & DC chargers, AC001, and DC001 chargers to supply to the Indian market.

The Department of Heavy Industries released the Bharat Charger AC001 & DC001 in the year 2017 which are adopted from GB/T (Chinese) standards with slight modifications in ambient temperature relevant to Indian climate conditions.

Current Indian scenario:

Currently, a vast majority of EV chargers are imported from China and are not being manufactured locally. This is resulting in the high cost of chargers. This major issue is increasing the CAPEX for setting up EV infra. There is a need to support Indian manufacturers and push for domestic production.

Despite various efforts by the government, there is a need for strong policy support, aggressive investments by OEMs & increased customer awareness to create more demand for EVs, provide a reliable charging experience & accessibility to charging infrastructure.

Some important figures:

As per a MarketWatch report, India would need around 4 lakh charging stations to accommodate the demand for 20 lakh EVs on the roads by 2026.

An independent study by CEEW-CEF states that it would need around 29 lakh public charging stations by 2030 to support EV adoption under the base case target of NITI Aayog. Of these, about 21 lakh (71%) of chargers would be low capacity chargers used for supporting two & three-wheelers.

According to a 2019 white paper by the World Economic Forum, the Indian automobile industry is one of the fastest-growing markets, even though it accounts for only 0.5% of the global EV market.

Conclusion:

As the use of electric vehicles is steadily growing in India, the need for Electric Vehicle charging stations is also essential.

In today’s India, a number of new startups like Kazam & others are strengthening the EV charging market by way of home charging as well as providing solutions for B2B, B2C & all types of clients.

EV charging is going to be the next fuel across the world.