In the next two months, the government is most likely to launch an app that provides a consolidated view of electric vehicle (EV) charging and battery swapping stations.
App Providing Consolidated View For EV Charging Stations
Further, a senior government official informed that the app will provide the location and the capacity of these stations among other things.
The launch and development of this is being led by NITI Aayog.
According to the officials, the charging point operators and equipment manufacturers have all come on board to share the required information with the app.
Presently, a person with a particular brand of EV has a view of charging stations pertaining to only that specific make / model due to the lack of interoperability.
Further explaining, the officials said, “Right now, if you have a Tata electric car, then the charging infrastructure of Tata will be visible to you. But on the new app, MG, Mercedes, EESL, etc., all the charging infrastructure will be visible. This will be available in two months.”
How Does This Help?
The app will show information like charging station location, connectors, whether the charging station is operational, its capacity, etc during the starting phase.
As we know, the alternating current electric vehicle connectors deliver power from a charging station to the onboard charger of an electric car.
The onboard charger converts alternating current to direct current and then feeds it to the electric vehicle’s battery pack.
Besides this, the app will also show battery swapping stations and fast and slow chargers.
It will further mention whether the charging station is open (o), or captive (c), or semi-public (sp).
Here captive is a charging station exclusively for the electric vehicles owned or under the control of the owner of the charging station like fleet owners.
In the case of Semi-public charging stations, they are installed on private land but open to public use like visitor parking.
Likewise, Open or public charging stations are found street-side, at retail shopping centers, government facilities and parking areas.
The officials said, “Later, the government intends to include features like booking and payment in the application.”
So far, there are over 7,000 public charging stations.
Notably, India needs a charging station for every 75 electric four-wheelers as they are getting more popular with time.
Considering the potential, Oil marketing companies have been allocated Rs 800 crore to install 22,000 fast chargers at fuel pumps under FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles).
Besides this, several restaurants have installed EV charging stations at their properties and have plans to add more to cater to the growing number of travelers with EVs.
