Electric cars are a rare sight on Indian roads. No thanks to the lacking infrastructure of charging stations. Lately, EVs have become quite an attractive proposition for buyers in urban areas. But it is still far from achieving the same convenience offered by ICE-powered vehicles. The central governments are trying to do their part by introducing schemes such as FAME and other state-level policies, subsidies. These benefits reduce the overall price of the EV but it doesn’t solve the problem of a reliable charging network.
Recently, a charging facility was inaugurated in the Delhi NCR region which is claimed to be the biggest in India. The new charging hub is opened by Alektrify Pvt Ltd., the official partner for the government’s NHEV in setting up charging infrastructure. The company claims that the new hub can charge 100 cars simultaneously. The expanse of the electric car charging hub intrigued us and we decided to pay it a visit and actually test their claims.
The Alektrify charging hub has been opened in Gurugram Sector 52. The location wasn’t what we expected. It wasn’t on the immediate side of a highway or any major roadway. Instead, you might have to go through a few narrow lanes to get to the facility. Once you get there and enter the gates, you realize the scale of the charging hub. It likens a big parking lot, but with some mega charging stations in between.
We were surprised to see so many electric cars already parked and charging. However, all these cars belonged to the Blu Smart Mobility fleet. After inquiring further, we were told that currently only Blu Smart cabs are allowed to use the charging facility. However, there are plans to open the ports to individual electric vehicle users as well.
We witnessed various big charging stations and some small charging docks. As expected, the bigger apparatus was for DC chargers and the smaller ones were AC chargers. By no means did the facility have 100 DC chargers. Instead, it had around 24 DC chargers and around 72 slow chargers. The total chargers were 96 but we were told that the hub will be able to accommodate up to 100 cars in the future.
How do the chargers work?
We were particularly interested in the fast chargers. Each DC charger had a total of two charging guns. Once the car is parked, you just need to pull out one of the two guns and plug it into your DC charging port. Once that’s done, you can enter the dedicated app (not available to general users yet) and then scan the QR code to start charging. Another way to start the charging is through an NFC card. However, we do not think the facility of using a smart card is operational yet.
The DC charging dock has a display that shows the charging status which includes the current battery level, and the electricity consumed. The apparatus also has a big red emergency button to shut it down in case of an emergency. The DC chargers had big fans within the dock to maintain optimal temperature.
Coming to the slow chargers. It seemed a lot like a charger you would find at home. Each dock had three charging guns. You just have to pull it and plug it in the AC charging port. Once plugged in, the charging starts right away. Alektrify does not have a payment mechanism with the slow chargers yet.
Alektrify Fast Charger (Slow charger on the right)
How quickly can an electric car charge with a fast charger?
The DC fast chargers at the facility can charge a Tata Tigor EV completely within 2 to 2.5 hours. The time duration depends on the size of the battery. The initial charge is very quick, similar to most fast charging techniques. The charging speed starts plateauing after reaching 80 percent charge. This is done to optimize battery health.
The slower AC chargers take around 8 hours for a complete charge. These docks are mostly used to charge cars overnight. Considering that these are AC chargers, they provide better battery health when compared to their DC counterparts.
Are 100 chargers enough?
The facility is pretty huge when compared to current charging station standards in India. However, the country might soon outgrow the supply. The fact that more than 50 percent of the chargers were already occupied shows the potential demand we might experience in the immediate future. We definitely need to do more. When EV adoption increases, we might need to breach this threshold of 100 chargers and that too with more DC chargers at disposal. Witnessing India’s biggest electric car charging facility makes us hopeful of an electricity-driven India.
The post Visiting India’s largest electric car charging hub appeared first on BGR India.
