HYDERABAD: Owners and operators of over 3,000 public charging points plying on Hyderabad’s roads, including auto-rickshaws, do not have any public charging points at their disposal. However, the city is still positioned better than the Bengaluru, where around 8,000 electric vehicles are plying without any public charging points whatsoever. With the delay in formulating Telangana's Electric Vehicle policy, due to a series of election, the emerging electric vehicle market is facing initial hiccups.
Of course, the picture is not completely gloomy. “Currently, two major companies are scouting for locations in the city to set up public charging points for EVs,” an official in the Energy Department said.
Sources said that the two companies are willing to set up charging points at all Hyderabad Metro stations, RTC bus depots, cinema halls and other such places in the city. This will likely encourage people to shift to EVs in the next one or two years.
According to sources, a normal charger may cost around `50,000, which would take around five to six hours to charge the battery of a normal EV. The speed charger, which would take less than two hours, costs around `4 to `5 lakhs. “If a person buys a house worth `1 crore, he/she can set up his own charging point at his residence by spending `5 lakh. It would not be a problem for them,” the official said.
However, the real problem is that the manufacturing of EVs has not picked up in the country. “The Central government placed an order for 10,000 EVs. But, the manufacturers have been unable to deliver them for many months,” the official explained.The price of an EV car is around `12 lakh. This is also one of the reasons buyers are not so inclined to shift from petrol/diesel vehicles.
EV policy soon
The State government is expected to come up with its own Electric Vehicle policy soon . It may offer several incentives to those who want to set up public charging points, said sources. The State government is very eager to promote EVs in the city. State government officials have requested the Centre to choose Hyderabad, which has a 200 acres of land bank near the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, for setting up a 5 GWh capacity manufacturing plant, as envisaged by the Central government as part of National Mission on Transformative Mobility.
High price of entry a deterrent
The price of an EV car is around `12 lakh. This is also one of the reasons buyers are not so inclined to shift from petrol/diesel vehicles. “Sports utility vehicles cost around `25 lakh. Transport operators may prefer buying them,” said the official. A normal charger used to charge such a vehicle can cost around `50,000