Wishlist for the Indian EV landscape: Owners & enthusiasts speak

More pay and use slow charging systems at offices and places where the car is likely to be parked for some time.

BHPian electric_eel recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Here is a wish list of mine? Do you want to add any ?

Infrastructural:

• Single payment scheme for all the multitudes of fast chargers (something like fast tag system should be fine).
• More pay and use slow charging systems at offices and places where the car is likely to be parked for some time.
• Public parking lot with solar powered slow charging system as in 2.
• Smart metering system which gives real time information on the energy mix (green vs coal powered).
• Dedicated EV servicing group particularly with the blessing of OEMs.

Vehicular:

• Paddle shifter regen control and drive mode selection. It looks like most of the OEMs reailise this is important are giving it in the newer version of their cars.
• Better aerodynamic design. Newer cars should put in a lot of emphasis on this.
• More intelligent breakup of power consumption details on the MID/auxiliary information system. At the very least a separation of power consumed for the drive train vs others.
• More intelligent slow charging system making use of information that can be supplied through smart metering (See point 4 above). I should be able to have a “green mode” of
• charging where the vehicle only charges when the “greenness” measure is above a given threshold. Together with (2) it can provide a way to make EVs even more greener.
• More detailed battery health information that what is merely available on the so called “connected apps”
• Less “connected features” and more in car data taking into account privacy issues.

Here’s what BHPian Shreyans_Jain had to say on the matter:

A unified wallet that supports all kinds of chargers is the single most important and necessary innovation that needs to happed. Useful for making payments, and also to search for chargers. It should show in real time if a charger is free or not. Route planning feature can also be implemented. Ideally, it should be linked to Fastag as well.

Right now, there are 10 different apps for different fast chargers, each with their own wallet, and users are required to maintain balance in them individually. It is a huge inconvenience.

Here’s what BHPian mally2 had to say on the matter:

I want this innovation:

We should be able to plug the charger to the car,

The charger should be able to identify the vehicle details and start charging immediately,

When we stop or end the charging session on the charger. The display should generate a QR to make the payment, once payment is done the gun unlocks

Here’s what BHPian ferrarirules had to say on the matter:

My thoughts on this in order of importance:

• EV specific service centres
• Charging infra on newly created expressways. Most of the new expressways don’t have charging options. Even if they are there, they are run by govt OMC companies and the reliability of these chargers is questionable due to lack of interest.
• Need of an overarching app which shows the EV charging network and its status. If the facility to initiate charging is available that will be icing on the cake.
• CPO should allow direct payment methods like UPI, credit card rather than loading money in a wallet. This should be like Blusmart, Uber or OLA

Some wants which are specific to my Nexon Max:

• I would love to have paddle shifter based regen. You can have so much more fun with the quick control of regen.
• I would want it to remember my previous drive settings. Its is annoying to set every time you drive the car.

Here’s what BHPian EV Fan had to say on the matter:

 Infrastructural:

• Desperately needed – unified charging platform or single RFID tag.
• Dreams – Maybe an option to even transfer excess solar generation at home for payment at fast charging station.
• Desperately needed – Dedicated EV servicing group particularly with the blessing of OEMs. Knowledgeable sales force too.
• +1 for More pay and use slow charging systems at offices and places where the car is likely to be parked for some time.
• Time of day tariff for cheaper rates.
• Car shade + Washroom facilities for all charging stations.

Vehicular:

• Regen Level – sliding selector for Fine Tuning Regen Level selection as per customer choice.
• Heat reflective window glass as per the permissible limit.
• EV specific platform for better rear seats.
• +1 for Better aerodynamic design. Newer cars should put in a lot of emphasis on this.
• Charging KWh consumption display – to show how much KWh consumed at the supply/input.
• Plugshare on the Infotainment.

Here’s what BHPian aviator1101 had to say on the matter:

My thoughts on the subject:

Just like we can transfer petrol from one vehicle to another in emergency, is it possible to charge one EV from another? If not possible as of today, I would surely like to have that feature in my EV.

Are all batteries of all EVs of same dimensions or specifications? Not talking about the capacity, just the adaptability part. If not, ultimately that should be the goal.

Here’s what BHPian GoBabyGo had to say on the matter:

Hi, my wish list is:

EV should be designed to ensure excellent under thigh support for rear passengers. Space is never an issue with EVs, it is just that under thigh support is lacing in almost all the EVs at the back seat.

Sober front look of EV. Currently majority of EV look like very uncommon and not likeable in my view. A sober e.g. Kia EV6 front look is to be followed for EVs.

EV chargers which can charge atleast 4-5 EVs at a time should be installed at every major fuel pumps across India.

Installation of Public chargers (30kW & 50kW) at every Municipal Parking in all the cities.

Discounted priced Public chargers inside high rise apartments by city’s Electricity Board (may be on PPP model) which will be maintained by RWA / builder of that apartment.

As pointed out by others, payment of public fast chargers should be linked with Paytm to enable users to make payment easily. If possible, a credit card swipe machine be connected with the machine through which people can swipe their credit card & make payment.

Here’s what BHPian privin had to say on the matter:

Wholeheartedly agree most of the ideas for better EV experience.

We shouldn’t have to physically do anything to charge. We should just park in a special area. Cars should have special DC connector at bottom. And the robotic connector should align and push themselves up. Not sure why we carried forward the same approach of ICE fuel dispenser mechanism!! More than anything, this reduces thick cables needed for charging.

In any case I am worried about business model of charging infra. For ICE, the gas pumps are assured of vehicles visiting them. For EVs, we charge at home or office. So within the city, requirements will be far less. Only visitors to city need to use them. Even they will also likely charge on highways. (Services such as cabs will have their own optimised charging infra.)

So that leaves only highway charging to be profitable. Then as well, there would be competition. Dominant app (eventually) will rule and dictate terms to providers (like Amazon fleecing the manufactures of every penny).

Anyway, we will have fun in next few years!

Here’s what BHPian shyampsundar had to say on the matter:

I have been driving the ZS EV for the last 1 year and it has truly been a wonderful experience. I drive a lot more now with an EV and 80%+ of my rides have been on highways. Unexpected surprise has been meeting a bunch of EV owners who have always surprised me with the abundance of knowledge that they possess.

I am truly astounded by how much risk appetite CPOs have to invest in EV charging as a business when it continues to be a deeply unprofitable business. The space is only heating up with the likes of Jio BP starting to build massive charging hubs that can accommodate 100+ cars at a time. While others may be unhappy about having multiple apps, wallets, etc, I feel they are very minor irritants given the risks that these CPOs are taking to make our long drives possible.

My wishlist:

Long-range EVs with LFP batteries. Today all the longer-range cars like the Ioniq 5 are on NMC which tend to degrade over time. After driving the ZS EV and seeing cars with 0 degradation after 30k KMs, I would hate to give up this tech in my next purchase.

Reliable power on highways. While CPOs continue to invest tons of money into this space, we are bottlenecked by the lack of reliable power on our highways. Day-long power shutdowns are not uncommon even in industrial states like TN and they tend to coincide with weekends when most EV owners undertake long drives. Thankfully in most routes, we have more than enough backup options but as the number of EVs shoots up, this is going to end up hurting a bunch of EV owners is my hunch.

Outside of safety, I sincerely wish that no govt regulation ends up being imposed on the EV charging business. One bureaucratic dictat around price etc is enough to set us back many years in this transition. Till now govt policy around EVs has been favorable and I wish for that to continue.

Keyword: Wishlist for the Indian EV landscape: Owners & enthusiasts speak