BPCL to set up 100 fast EV charging corridors on national highways

Oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has announced an investment of around ₹200 crore this fiscal to set up 100 fast electric vehicles charging corridors along national highways. BPCL made the announcement on Wednesday, saying that these corridors, to be set up along the 100 busiest national highways across India, will have 2,000 EV charging stations.

BPCL recently opened its first EV charging corridor along the Chennai-Trichi-Madurai highway with one charging unit. In the next two months, BPCL will soon come up with its second corridor on the Kochi-Salem section.

BS Ravi, Executive Director for retail at BPCL, said, "We have budgeted for around ₹200 crore investment this fiscal as we plan to set up as many as 2,000 fast charging stations across 100 corridors by March 2023." Ravi also said that for the long-term, BPCL has plans to install 7,000 fast EV charging stations in the next three years.

Besides the two fast EV corridors, the third corridor is likely to come up at the Mumbai-Bengaluru National Highway 4. It is expected to have multiple units as the highway has amongst the highest traffic.

The sales of electric vehicles in India has been rising in leaps and bounds in recent times. According to auto dealers' body FADA, electric vehicle sales in India has shot up three times in the last fiscal to almost 4.30 lakh units from just 1.34 lakh units in FY21 and from 1.68 lakh units in FY20. Electric two-wheelers especially scooters contributed to a majority of the EV sales.

Tata Motors leads the EV four-wheeler segment with 15,198 units sold and a market share of 85.37 per cent. Tata is followed by MG Motor with 2,045 units and a market share of 11.49 per cent. Mahindra & Mahindra and Hyundai stood at third and fourth places with dispatches of 156 and 128 units respectively.

In the EV two-wheeler segment, which saw sales jump five fold in the last fiscal, is dominated by Hero Electric with 65,303 units. Hero has a commanding 28.23 per cent share, followed by Okinawa Autotech with 46,447 units and Ampere Vehicles with 24,648 units. Ather Energy stood at fourth position by selling 19,971 units last fiscal while Ola Electric was at the sixth position selling 14,371 units.