Non-availability of charging stations is always blamed for the slow adaption of electric vehicles in India. However, the limited numbers of EVs running on the road keep charging station companies in limbo. For charging station operators, especially private ones, aggressive business investments are still a big gamble. However, according to Varun Chaturvedi, MD & CEO, Volttic, charging stations’ numbers depend on EVs’ penetration in India. “Instead of discussing the classic chicken and egg problem and comparing the Indian EV market with the western market, we need to understand the penetration of EVs and charging stations will happen simultaneously,” says Chaturvedi.

The electric vehicle charging stations market is expected to exceed more than USD 30 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 40%. As per a rough estimation, currently, there are around 1,000 Bharat DC001 charging stations and over 1,000 Bharat AC001 charging stations are available in India.

The Indian Government also announced its intention to set up at least one e-charging kiosk at around 69,000 petrol stations across India.

Volttic is a leading charge point operator (CPO) in India running EV charging stations pan India. The company provides complete end-to-end EV charging solutions for home and commercial segments.

“Volttic focuses a business strategy which benefits for all- OEs, EV owners and us,” adds Chaturvedi.

The company is consciously setting up EV charging stations with customised solutions on demand in the country. “Rather than putting charging infrastructures where nobody comes, we are tying up with people who are ready to use our solutions,” he explains.

The company is currently focusing on fleet operators, which Chaturvedi predicts, will have faster growth in India when it comes to the EV adoption. As of now, Volttic’s dedicated charging and public charging stations ratio is 80 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

In the B2B segment, Volttic’s clients are employee transporters, while in the B2C, the company serves taxi fleets.

“We are strategically deploying our charging stations to relieve our customers from range anxiety and carry smooth transportation without breakdown,” he says.

Having a background of electrical engineering, his core expertise is in electrical equipment, chargers, batteries, and the power sector. Elaborating his decision to venture into the EV charging station business, he says, “In 2016-17, there were hardly any players in the EV charging station business, though it was gaining momentum in Europe and the US. The charging station business was relatively new in India then, and everybody had to start from scratch, which provided equal challenges and opportunities. Being an entrepreneur, you should adopt a business where you have the expertise and control over the technologies. We knew the EV charging station will mostly evolve on as a service.”

Volttic’s Co-founder, Surendar Pratap Singh, too comes from the electric background, while the other co-founder, Shweta Chaturvedi, hails from the software industry. “Having the background of hardware and software, we are completely self-dependent in the EV charging supply chain,” Chaturvedi adds.

However, challenges are larger in deploying public EV charging stations compared with dedicated ones. Explaining the challenges further, Chaturvedi says, “Generally, two to three days are needed to set up a dedicated EV charging station in a corporate premise as most of the infrastructure such as power supply, wiring and parking space is readily available. However, when it comes to a public domain, we have to spend months scouting a location, then getting power supply from DISCOM takes time as well.”

EV charging takes more time than gasoline refuelling, and EV consumers expect to have charging station points at their preferred locations, time, and price to avoid range anxiety. Chaturvedi added that public EV charging stations should be deployed in public spaces such as malls, restaurants, hotels, shopping complexes and others where they can indulge in other recreational activities while the vehicles are being charged.

The company provides technology-oriented solutions consist of Bharat DC01 & Bharat AC01, CCS2 Chargers & ChadeMo Chargers to serve the clients’ needs. Currently, it operates around 123 charging points AC/ DC mix and plans to order around 50 double guns fast chargers with 100 charging points in the next couple of months. In the next five years by 2025, Volttic aims to have around 5,000 plus machines with double guns. “So, if we talk about charging points, we will have between 10,000 plus charging points in the next five years,” adds Chaturvedi. The company is in the process of executing an order of USD1 million in the next few months.

On the policy side, he urges a push for private charging players as well. Last year the Government had given in-principle approval to firms, including NTPC, EESL and REIL, to set up 2,600 EV charging stations.

“Last time, under the FAME-II, subsidies were given to EV charging stations operated by PSUs. This time too, an Expression of Interest (EoI) has been invited for highways and expressways.” However, he advocates that the EV ecosystem should not only depend on subsidies. “We need to come out from the mindset of incentives. Once subsidies are stopped, many nights by flyers vanish from the market,” he says.

Volttic focuses on better utilisation of the EV charging machines to have economic viability in the business.

“If my dedicated charging machines are utilised for ten to twelve hours and public charging stations are utilised for around six to seven hours per day, I can achieve economic viability,” says Chaturvedi.

Volttic’s all EV charging machines are manufactured according to government standards by its strategic partners in India. Deployment and maintenance are taken care of by Volttic. “Software is the backbone of our business. Station monitoring, tariff management, booking slots, navigation, payments and app, everything is managed by in-house software team,” adds Chaturvedi. The company provides public EV charging app with all advance feature set for EV drivers. Easy navigation to nearest charging stations, booking, payment and all transaction details just in a click with Volttic mobile application. The app also provides complete details of charging station and availability for charging slots and many more advance features for EV users.

Margins in the business widely depend on the operating costs, which again vary from city to city. EV charging stations charge in both ways- per unit (kWH) or hours or minutes basic, and In India, EV charging stations in use the former way to charge tariffs. “Operating cost and subsequently, tariffs depend on many factors. Many states have adopted the EV policy so there are caps on per unit charge, while states that have not adopted the EV policy charge commercial rates per unit. Besides, location rents and machine cost also determine the tariffs. But yes, the tariff has to be lower than per km costs of fossil fuel-driven vehicles. Commercial viability can be achieved if machine utilisation rates are good,” explains Chaturvedi.

Talking on the feasibility of procuring energy from solar, he says, “Again to install a dedicated solar system, you need CAPEX. Even if it is fitted and the machines’ utilisation remains low, where will we dump electricity or inject in the grid at ever lower net metering? However, our ultimate goal is to get energy from renewable resources in future, when we have good hours of machine utilisation to consume dedicated renewable power energy. Also, within city getting rooftop location to develop a 50-70 KW solar plant will be another challenge, so we are more aligned toward our nationwide renewable integration up to 175 GW by 2022 and subsequent more to the coming year.”

As most EV charging station business is being driven by commercial fleet operators, availing value-added services do not bring more business rather bring more liability, thinks Chaturvedi. “Value-added services are good for personal/ individual vehicle owners, whereas commercial fleet operators think of the total cost of operations,” tells Chaturvedi.

Chaturvedi quotes battery swapping is currently not viable for electric 4W and buses as it needs heavy infrastructure.

Moreover, it is not viable unless battery packs and technologies are uniformed in the electric car and buses by all OEMs, which looks very difficult in coming time as well.

“Since Volttic is using only Government approved EV Chargers standard and that are adopted by all OEM of four-wheeler cars and buses, so most of the client are fleet of electric car and buses. For two and three-wheelers, swapping is a more convenient option as most of them currently available in the market do not have the facility to charge fast with DC chargers. So swapping is the way to get a quick top-up by replacing charged batteries,” adds he.

It requires robust infrastructure such as bulk charging system, a software system to get details on batteries. The business is only successful when fleets run over 200 km per day, and there is a good number of volume of 2W & 3W,” says Chaturvedi. However, the company is also exploring options of getting into battery swapping business with two and three-wheeler fleet companies. (MT)

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Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, in collaboration with industry partners, have published a study in Nature Communications demonstrating that reconfigurable battery pack architectures can extend electric vehicle battery operational life by more than 20 percent under specific conditions.

In conventional electric vehicle battery packs, cells are wired in a fixed series configuration, meaning the weakest cell dictates the overall capacity, performance and lifespan of the entire pack. The architecture evaluated by the Chalmers engineering team uses integrated electronic switches and a centralised battery management system to monitor individual cells or cell groups. When a cell experiences accelerated degradation or reduced capacity, the system bypasses the degraded unit while electric current continues to flow through the remaining functional cells.

Albert Skegro, a PhD student at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, said, "They must all move at the pace of the slowest person and stop when that person stops, regardless of how much energy the others have left. With the architecture we have modelled, the battery can instead bypass the cell that is causing problems and continue using the remaining cells."

Changfu Zou, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers, said, "Reconfiguration is not an on-or-off choice. It is a spectrum. Where a manufacturer chooses to position itself on that spectrum determines how much of the potential benefit can be realised."

In a representative modelling scenario featuring an 80 kWh battery pack driven 12,000 kilometres annually over an 18.8-year vehicle lifespan, the reconfigurable system deferred battery replacement by approximately 14 months. The researchers noted that the technology yields the highest performance gains in high-voltage vehicles, including 400-volt and 800-volt electric passenger cars and commercial trucks, where higher cell counts in series increase the statistical probability of individual cell variance.

A techno-economic analysis included in the study determined that implementing cell-level switching hardware increases initial pack production costs by approximately nine per cent based on prototype-scale volumes of 1,000 units. The researchers identified an economic break-even threshold at a 12 percent cost increase, noting that volume manufacturing would lower component costs and increase financial viability for fleet operators and private owners. While prototype applications such as Volvo Cars' SmartCell concept and experimental road vehicles exist, mass-production vehicles using reconfigurable battery packs are yet to enter the commercial market.

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Jakson Green Vehicles has selected Dassault Systèmes’ cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform to manage the design and development of its electric vehicles.

The implementation establishes a collaborative engineering framework to maintain digital continuity across the product development lifecycle. By connecting internal teams and external suppliers, the platform automates workflows, standardises component libraries and manages engineering change requests during early-stage product design. Virtual twin capabilities allow the vehicle manufacturer to conduct virtual validation testing to resolve structural and systems design issues prior to physical manufacturing.

Deepak Thakur, CEO, Jakson Green Vehicles, said, "Using Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Platform enables us to apply a collaborative approach and re-engineer our product lifecycle from the ground up. Through this transition from legacy environments to a unified digital thread, it enables strong R&D to achieve twin objectives; accelerated time-to-market and mitigated development costs. This partnership is helping us to transform the early-stage innovation and product design processes."

Deepak NG, Managing Director – India, Dassault Systèmes, said, "As India continues its dynamic growth trajectory, virtual twin technology serves as a powerful catalyst for sustainable innovation, empowering industries to rethink how they design, produce and operate."

The software adoption forms part of Jakson Green Vehicles' plan to build urban zero-emission mobility vehicles and infrastructure across India.

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UK-headquartered energy technology company Gelion has entered into a material transfer agreement with a top 15 global automotive original equipment manufacturer to assess its NES cathode platform for future electric vehicle battery applications.

Under the terms of the agreement, Gelion will supply its sulfur-based cathode active material, coated cathodes and liquid electrolyte to the automotive partner. The manufacturer will evaluate the platform in both liquid and solid electrolyte cell configurations, testing compatibility across lithium metal and graphitic anode pathways targeting luxury and mass-market vehicle applications. The technology is designed to serve as a drop-in cathode material capable of integration into existing battery manufacturing lines without re-tooling.

Matt Wood, Chief Executive Officer, Gelion, said, "Our priority markets are commercial & defence drones, EVs and devices. We are honoured to be working with these major global automotive OEMs, and today’s announcement marks further progress towards the adoption of our technology and the generation of commercial revenues via funded programmes and eventually license and royalty revenue in the global EV market, alongside some of the industry’s leading companies."

"The growing engagement from global EV manufacturers reinforces the potential and attractiveness of our NES™ technology. This momentum is also mirrored in our agreements and partnerships across drones and devices, while our work with Tier 1 materials suppliers is advancing the scale-up of our unique, patented battery materials," Wood added.

The agreement expands Gelion’s ongoing industry testing programs with automotive manufacturers, extending the assessment of its sulfur-based cathode platform across liquid and solid battery systems.

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Honda R&D, a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co., has developed underlying technology for a magnetic coupling wireless power transfer road system in partnership with Taisei Corporation and Taisei Rotec Corporation.

The system enables wireless in-motion charging for electric vehicles, including passenger cars and heavy commercial fleets. The partners plan to initiate demonstration testing on public roads starting in FY2027.

The technology integrates high-power-density receiver and transmitter units from Honda with a high-response direct current power supply system from Taisei and road-embedding construction techniques from Taisei Rotec. By supplying power to electric vehicles while in motion, dynamic wireless power transfer reduces the need for stationary charging infrastructure. The initial commercial focus targets logistics and transport operations, where continuous operation offers economic benefits.

The ground assembly embedded in the roadway combines the inverter and coil into a single unit designed to connect via direct current distribution. This design reduces component counts, simplifies wiring and supports installation into existing road surfaces through standard milling methods. The road pavement structures are engineered to withstand continuous traffic loads from vehicles weighing up to 20 tonnes (20,000kg).

Testing conducted at Taisei Group’s T-FIELD facility in Satte verified system stability and structural durability. Starting in late 2026, the companies will build a test roadway at T-FIELD Tamura to evaluate long-term durability under one million wheel-load cycles, measure power transfer efficiency at outputs up to 150 kW and analyse electromagnetic shielding.

The partnership will also join the Tateyama Expressway demonstration project managed by East Nippon Expressway Company starting in 2027.

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