MG Motors' second car in India will be electric – and so it has to offer charging stations too

• MG Motors is launching its electric car MG ZS EV in early December.
• India is still warming up to EV adoption and the biggest roadblock is the lack of charging infrastructure.
• In 2017, India had 222 publicly accessible charging points located in top cities.

Iconic carmaker MG Motors has had a warm welcome in India, and now its charging things up with an electric car. It’s launching the MG ZS EV in early December – a car that will hopefully make electric cars in India sexy.

The British company which is now owned by Chinese SIAC entered the India automobile market with a mid-size SUV, MG Hector in June 2019 and received an overwhelming response. It had to stop bookings after receiving 21,000 of them within a month.

Now, it hopes to have a similar path with its electric car with the launch slated to be on December 5. It will join the two other EV options in India – Mahindra eVerito and Hyundai Kona Electric.

Lack of charging infrastructure

All the electric vehicles launched and yet to be launched have a rocky road ahead. And not just because the car sales in general is on a slow lane for the last one year.

The cars need an extensive charging infrastructure and India had a mere 222 publicly accessible charging points in 2017 and that too in top cities. So MG is developing charging infrastructure as well.

Days ahead of its EV launch, MG Motors launched the first 50 kW DC charging station at its flagship showroom at Gurugram – n partnership with Fortum Charge & Drive India. They plan to add four more stations across Delhi NCR.

It is planning to open them in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

“With an aim to be the leader in the EV segment in India, we are pulling out all the stops to ensure adequate charging infrastructure for our first EV customers. Our endeavour is to create a robust ecosystem for EVs, right from charging to end-of-life for electric vehicles in India and the installation of the first public fast charger is the first major step in this direction,” said Rajeev Chaba, president and managing director at , MG Motor India.

However, it’s not alone. Tata Motors too is setting up 500 EV charging stations in five cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad – over the next two years.

What the Indian government is doing

The Indian government has set a mission – to convert 30% of cars on the roads to electric by 2030.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), under the Ministry of Power, has been given the authority to set up charging stations across the country. In a study done by the BEE and Ernst & Young, it was projected that by 2030, Delhi would have 22.6 lakh charging stations, Lucknow would have 6.3 lakhs while Nagpur would have 2.6 lakhs.

And there is the problem of the cost. “The retail pricing has been determined to be ₹4 per minute of charging that the operator is likely to charge the EV user with capital subsidy,” the study said.

“At least one charging station should be available in a grid of 3 Km X 3 Km in the cities and one charging station at every 25 km on both sides of highways/roads,” Power Minister RK Singh said recently.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced tax subsidy for people who buy electric cars during the Union Budget.

“To make electric vehicles affordable to consumers, our government will provide additional income tax deduction of ₹1.5 lakh on the interest paid on loans taken to purchase electric vehicles. This amounts to a benefit of around ₹2.5 lakh over the loan period to the taxpayers who take loans to purchase electric vehicles,” she had said.

See Also:
MG Hector SUV stops bookings in India after 21,000 in a month
Kia Seltos and MG Hector – the two cars that beat the slowdown blues