The opening up of its charging infrastructure to other EV brands and makes is expected to accelerate EV adoption in the country, according to the company.
13 Feb 2025 | 2547 Views | By Darshan Nakhwa and Prerna Lidhoo
India’s largest electric vehicle maker, Tata Motors, plans to open its charging stations to EVs of other automakers, the company’s management said today, while announcing its goal of doubling the charging points in India by 2027. The company targets to have 4 lakh EV charging points across the country, including ...
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India’s largest electric vehicle maker, Tata Motors, plans to open its charging stations to EVs of other automakers, the company’s management said today, while announcing its goal of doubling the charging points in India by 2027. The company targets to have 4 lakh EV charging points across the country, including home chargers, 30,000 public charging points, and 500 mega chargers.
“These chargers (public charging point and mega chargers) will be open to all OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). We fundamentally believe in open collaboration and making sure that the chargers are open to all EVs. That said there will be priority access and priority tariffs for Tata.ev customers,” said Balaje Rajan, chief strategy officer, passenger vehicles and electric mobility, Tata Motors.
According to the Mumbai-based company’s management, the opening up of its charging infrastructure to other EV brands and makes is expected to accelerate EV adoption. This will also ensure widespread accessibility, convenience and a mutually beneficial ecosystem for all EV users, CPOs, and infrastructure planners, the company management said.
“In terms of opening (of charging infrastructure) to all the OEMs is to increase the utilisation. And secondly, charging infrastructure at this stage of the EV industry should not be very exclusive. We need to give confidence to the customers to go for EVs rather than becoming too brand centric,” said Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility.
Responding to a question about the company’s plan to bridge the different charging technologies other OEMs may have, Rajan said, “Charging standards are fairly modernised at this point, with CCS-2 (Combined Charging System 2) being the prevailing charging standard. So these chargers will be CCS-2 standard. All the EVs that are announced in India right now are the same standard. So there will be no compatibility issue for any of the other EVs that might need to use these chargers.”
Tata Motors today launched its ‘Open Collaboration 2.0’ initiative, under which it will expand EV charging network in the country, provide a unified payment wallet and other services. It has partnered with key charging point operators (CPOs) like Tata Power, ChargeZone, Statiq and Zeon to expand charging infrastructure. Under the initiative, the automaker plans to operationalise 500 mega chargers in 2 years, in the first phase. These chargers will be deployed across key cities and major highways.
Initially, the company collaborated with Tata Group affiliates to implement private and home charging solutions. Subsequently, the focus shifted to expanding public charging infrastructure in cities with high rates of EV adoption.
Through its ‘Open Collaboration’ framework, launched in 2023, Tata Motors has been partnering with CPOs and OMCs to expand charging infrastructure across key hotspots, particularly along highways, to facilitate seamless long-distance mobility. “TATA.ev’s cumulative impact includes the installation of over 1.5 lakh private or home chargers, 2,500 community chargers, and 750 chargers at TATA dealerships across more than 200 cities,” the company said in a press release.
As of December 2024, a total of 25,202 EV public charging stations were installed in India, with the majority of them situated in Karnataka, followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, according to data from the Ministry of Power. Last year, the government allocated Rs 2,000 crore under the PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement scheme for the installation of EV public charging stations. The 2-year PM E-Drive scheme aims to establish a robust network of public charging stations, including 22,100 fast chargers for electric four-wheelers, 1,800 for e-buses, and 48,400 for electric two-wheelers and electric three-wheelers.
Meanwhile, other than Tata Motors, India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India plans to install 1,500 EV chargers across its service stations and plans to offer home installation services. Similarly, Hyundai Motor India has announced plans to install nearly 600 public fast EV charging stations across India within the next seven years. The two automakers launched their first mass market EVs at Auto Expo 2025.