Niti Aayog seeks ministry help for EV charging infra at petrol pumps

Government think tank Niti Aayog has asked the oil ministry to help set up electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure at 1,000 fuel stations across the country, but industry executives said any such move will require redesigning of stations and a viable business model.

Easy access to charging facility is key to making EVs popular in India where cities are choking with vehicle emissions, prompting the government to think of new ways to create an ecosystem favourable to green vehicles.

Since the talk of electric vehicles got louder globally a few years ago, Indian oil marketing companies have been exploring possibilities of being relevant in a future probably dominated by EVs. Now the government order can accelerate their transition.


For EV charging to take off at traditional pumps, companies will need to come up with a viable business model as well a design tweak of filling stations, company executives and petrol pump dealers said.

Current design allows vehicles to enter from one end of the pump, receive fuel from dispensers and exit within minutes from the other end. Replacing one dispenser or a set of dispensers with electric chargers would stop the free flow of traffic at pumps since charging takes much longer than filling liquid fuel, said Nitin Goyal, treasurer at All India Petroleum Dealers Association. This would inconvenience customers and slow down business.

The turnaround time for a petrol or diesel car is 2-5 minutes, but EV charging can take hours. A typical, slow-speed EV charger in America delivers about 32 km of driving capability for an hour of charging today. A fast charger offers 120 km of driving distance in half hour of charging. Companies are investing heavily in improving the charging capability as it's central to faster adoption of EVs. The speed at which a vehicle can recharge would depend on the charger's strength, EV's battery's size and the voltage the pack can accept.

Longer charging time would mean fewer customers serviced in a day at filling stations. Also, initially, there will be fewer EV customers. “Today we don’t know the kind of margin EV charging can offer. But before setting up a charging point, a dealer will evaluate if the business is as profitable as the liquid fuel business,” Goyal said.

Setting up charging stations at fuel pumps could be effective preliminary steps toward popularising EVs, though after a while charging points will proliferate to almost all places that can park a car or bike, Balwinder Singh Canth, a former marketing chief at Indian Oil, said.

“Most people can get their cars recharged in parking basements of their homes, offices or malls eventually. Commercial vehicle owners or those driving long distances probably would mostly need to go to filling stations for charging or swapping battery,” Canth said.

It’s important for oil companies to get into EV charging business now as it would help them retain market share in the transportation fuel business in future.