The key barrier for large-scale adoption of electric vehicles in India was lack of public charging infrastructure. Thus, India needs to have a robust backbone for charging infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country with considerations of traffic and population density.
Infrastructure segment includes charging infrastructure, battery swapping stations, and businesses built on traction battery.
In the following sections, firstly, we will assess players responsible for setting up charging stations and business models adopted by them. Secondly, players making use of traction batteries and their businesses:
The growth in electric vehicles led to the coming up of the charging businesses. International experience suggests that various stakeholders/institutions have engaged themselves in planning and development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Among all these players, you can make the most impact in developing and operating electric vehicle charging stations either by being a charging infrastructure manufacturer or charging station operator. The following section provides details on these two players:
You can generate revenue by manufacturing and selling electric vehicle charging equipment. There can be two ways of providing electric vehicle infra hardware solutions: first, standalone delivery – to install at home, workplace, or for public charging; and second, in partnership with vehicle manufacturers, offering the hardware as a part of the vehicle. You will essentially be providing a complete charging points solution for public and private charging and including the hardware and software installation. You will also provide services such as maintenance of the hardware as well as additional support services. Some of the major charging infrastructure manufacturers are: Delta Electronics, Mass Tech, ABB India, Exicom, Okaya, RRT.
If you choose to become a Charging Point Operator (CPO), you will generate revenue by operating a network of chargers. The services you choose to provide will include electric vehicle charging, customer support, network solution (standalone or in partnership with a Network Service Provider), etc.
You can choose among different pricing mechanisms such as Time-based fees, Energy-based fees, fixed fees, Membership fees, etc., to charge electric vehicle users. Additionally, the Ministry of Power has stated electric vehicle charging as a “service”, which means that you do not require licensing under the Electricity Act 2003. Some of the companies working as CSO are: EESL, Tata Power, Magenta Group, Fortum India, Volttic, Charge Zone, etc.
Some of the companies working as CSO are: EESL, Tata Power, Magenta Group, Fortum India, Volttic, Charge Zone, etc.
Services in the battery segment can play a huge role in promoting uptake of electric vehicles since Batteries contribute ~40% in overall cost of EV. Additionally, businesses delivering value in terms of reducing overall cost of electric vehicles also have a huge role to play.
Potential services/ processes related to battery that you can take up for business and help in reducing the overall cost of ownership for electric vehicle buyers are:
Electric vehicle batteries are mostly made of lithium-ion and consist of rare elements such as Lithium, Nickel, and Cobalt. As the electric vehicle industry grows, use of these rare elements is expected to increase, and with availability concentrated in a few countries only, supply chain issues might arise in the future. Thus, battery recycling would be the required way to go ahead.
Recycling will reduce negative environmental impact as well as has the potential to reduce the overall cost of a battery (and therefore electric vehicles’). It makes use of a circular economy model so as to maximize asset utilization.
One such company working actively in sustainable battery recycling is Gravita India.
Setting up a business in battery subscription means providing the customers with reduced upfront cost of electric vehicles and addressing the biggest concern most of the buyers have!
In battery subscription, batteries are provided to vehicle operators on a subscription basis, charging for use on daily or per kilometer rates.
A type of billing in which the user pays conducts the payment-process directly before receiving a service (in our case, the use of a charge point).
Pay-as-you-Go is most common for spontaneous users since they do not have any long-term contract with the charge point operator.
However, Pay-as-you-Go may also be used for those contract users who do prefer direct payment over payment via invoice at a later time (postpaid). Sun Mobility is the key player for the pay-as-you-go business model.
BaaS makes use of a circular economy model so as to maximize asset utilization, and at the same time, connects the transport and energy sector. Manufactured batteries (new) are leased to end-users such as vehicle owners, energy storage projects, etc., for usage. Once the battery reaches to near its end-of-life (EoL), the BaaS service provider either refurbishes the batteries and make them suitable to be used in applications such as energy storage or behind the meter usage; or recycles the batteries by extracting the raw material from them to manufacture new batteries With examples such as NIO Baas across the globe and Sun Mobility and Esmito in India, you can become a leader in the country for BaaS
