E Mobility Charging Infra Newsletter - COE Chakra
E-mobility & Charging Infra Newsletter
Before You Bring Me Home
The Great Indian Electric Reset: What It’s Really Like Being an EV in 2026
There's a lot being said about electric cars in India — growth, disruption, the future. But before you make the decision, here's what life as an EV actually looks like from the inside.
May, 2026
Siddhesh Naik, E-Mobility and charging infra team, SBI CHAKRA
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You've probably noticed me more often lately. I'm the quiet one at the signal — the green number plate, the Tata or the Mahindra that doesn't shudder at idle. A lot is being said about me: growth, disruption, the future. But if you're thinking of bringing me home, there are a few things I wish you knew. |
2025 was, genuinely, a strong year. More models, more infrastructure, more people willing to give me a chance. But I'm still a work in progress. And the gaps — between city and highway, between what I cost to run and what I cost to own — are still wider.
A city kid on a national highway
My charging network has grown significantly — between early 2023 and mid-2025, public charging stations quadrupled to nearly thirty thousand across the country [Source: Ministry of Power]. That sounds substantial. But here's what the number hides: nearly all of those chargers are clustered in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. Take me to a Tier-2 city, and the map gets sparse. Take me to a highway between those cities, and I start to get anxious.
As of mid-2025, India's EV-to-charger ratio sat at roughly 1:16. The global average is closer to 3:10 for cars [Source: IEA]. That gap is not a minor inconvenience — it is the central fact of my existence outside a metro. A petrol car's driver pulls into any pump on NH48 and refuels in four minutes. My driver spends twenty minutes verifying that the charger on Google Maps is actually operational, then another forty-five waiting if it is.
"The honest version of my story is this: I am, for now, a city car. I do school runs and office commutes with quiet efficiency. The moment you ask me to cross state lines, you need to plan the journey around me — not the other way around."
Cheap to run. Expensive to own
Running me costs as little as ₹1.48 per kilometre. A petrol two-wheeler costs ₹2.46 per km; a petrol SUV considerably more [Source: CEEW]. On fuel alone, I win decisively, and that advantage compounds over years of daily driving. But the total cost of owning me tells a more complicated story — and it starts before you've driven a single kilometre.
The sticker price is the first hurdle. An electric SUV in India typically costs ₹8–10 lakh more than a comparable petrol model. Government subsidies under FAME II and state-level incentives have helped narrow this gap. The break-even point — where my lower running costs offset the higher purchase price — arrives somewhere between four and five years of regular use. For buyers who evaluate a car the way they'd evaluate any large financial decision, that's a long horizon to commit to on an evolving technology.
On another note, my insurance premium runs 25–60% higher than an equivalent petrol car. The reason sits in my chest: a lithium-ion battery pack that accounts for between 50% and 70% of my total value. That battery is not repairable the way an engine is. A stone chip. A minor flood. A parking scrape that dents the casing. Any of these can trigger a total loss — a battery replacement claim that can reach ₹7 lakh or more depending on the model. Insurers have priced this risk carefully, and they've priced it into every premium you'll pay. [Source: Economic Times]
Then there's the question of what happens when you try to sell me. I lose resale value roughly twice as fast as a petrol equivalent. Buyers aren't hostile — they're cautious. There's no standard way to assess my battery health. Every manufacturer uses their own diagnostic system, their own benchmarks, their own language. A second-hand buyer can't walk in with a universal tool and get a definitive reading on my heart. So, they assume the worst and offer accordingly.
Until the industry agrees on a common battery health standard — the way there's a universal standard for reading engine health — this trust gap will keep suppressing my resale value. It's a solvable problem. It just hasn't been solved yet.
The two-wheeler verdict
While I get the headlines — the launches, the SUV reveals, the feature announcements — it's actually my two-wheeled cousins who have quietly figured out how to be electric in India. They made up nearly 58% of all EV sales in FY 2025, growing 21% year-on-year [Source: Vahan Dashboard].
The reason is simple: they charge at home, cost less to buy, and cover exactly the distances most Indian commuters actually travel. They don't need highway charging networks. They don't trigger insurance anxiety. They've cracked what I'll call "India fit" — the alignment between what an EV needs and what India currently offers
I haven't cracked it yet. Not for long-distance use. Not for apartment dwellers who can't run a charging cable to a basement parking spot. Not for buyers in cities where a dedicated home charger requires a bureaucratic battle with the housing society. The two-wheelers have the terrain mapped. I'm still working on the route.
The monopoly that ended
For years, Tata Motors owned my world so completely that "electric car" and "Nexon EV" were near-synonyms in Indian households. That era is over. Tata, MG Motor, and Mahindra now share about 87% of the passenger EV market between them — and the gap between first and third place is closing fast [Source: Economic Times].
What's changed isn't just competition — it's architecture. MG's Windsor and Mahindra's XEV series are what the industry calls "born electric" platforms: cars designed from the ground up as EVs rather than petrol platforms with a battery grafted on. That matters because purpose-built EVs can optimise space, weight distribution, and thermal management in ways that conversions cannot. The engineering choices are different when electricity is the premise, not the retrofit.
More players building better platforms means more choices for you — and more pressure on everyone to improve. That part of my story is genuinely good news.
The road ahead is real
I'm not asking you to believe in me blindly. I am asking you to understand the shape of the bet you're making. If you drive primarily within a city, charge at home or at work, and keep the car for five or more years, the economics work clearly in my favour. The fuel savings are real. The driving experience — the quiet, the instant torque, the absence of a gearbox — is something most drivers don't expect to enjoy as much as they do – but you will get adjusted.
And the trajectory matters. Battery-as-a-Service models are beginning to decouple my sticker price from the battery cost that inflates it — making me accessible to buyers who could never justify the upfront number. State governments are expanding charging mandates. Born-electric platforms are closing the engineering gap with petrol cars. The industry is finally starting to converge on shared battery health standards, which will gradually rebuild trust in the resale market.
If you regularly drive intercity or live in an apartment without charging access, some of these gaps will still affect you today. But each of these problems has a solution in motion — and that is genuinely new. A year ago, they were problems in conversation. Now they are problems being built around.
"The honest version of my story isn't a cautionary tale. It's a story about a technology that arrived before its supporting infrastructure did — and is watching that infrastructure catch up in real time."
I started 2026 as a city car with highway ambitions. By the time this decade closes, the ambitions will have caught up. The charging network will reach the highways. The resale market will mature. The upfront cost will fall. Every quarter, the version of me you can buy gets meaningfully better than the one before it. That's not optimism — it's the data. And it's the reason that, despite everything I've told you here, more people are bringing me home every month than ever before.
E-mobility & Charging Infra Sectoral Insights
India’s electric mobility sector is undergoing a structural shift, supported by aligned policy measures, deepening industrial capabilities, and growing investor interest. Concerns over air pollution, energy security, and fossil fuel dependency have elevated the importance of transport electrification. This shift is no longer confined to individual vehicles but now spans manufacturing ecosystems, energy infrastructure, and urban logistics systems. The ecosystem-wide transformation has placed original equipment manufacturers in a pivotal position, driving innovation and volume across the full range of vehicle categories.
Electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers have emerged as early winners, offering viable economics for daily commutes and commercial use. These vehicles benefit from lower operating costs, targeted subsidies, and product designs suited to India’s mobility needs. Although four-wheelers and heavy commercial vehicles face more complex adoption hurdles, they are steadily advancing with improvements in battery efficiency and a growing range of available models. Institutional buyers and fleet operators are beginning to scale adoption, accelerating the momentum across vehicle segments.
These shifts are underpinned by improving cost dynamics, particularly where usage intensity is high. For logistics providers, ride-hailing platforms, and public transport agencies, electric vehicles now offer a strong financial case relative to conventional alternatives. The declining total cost of ownership across categories is driven by reduced energy costs, falling battery prices, and simplified maintenance requirements. This cost advantage is encouraging broader participation, especially among commercial fleets and urban mobility operators, and is starting to influence private consumer preferences.
As the vehicle market evolves, infrastructure is expanding to match. Charging networks are growing across metro areas and transport corridors, with over 25,000 public chargers installed by 2024 and significant further expansion expected by 2030. Both slow and fast charging solutions are being developed to support different use cases, while battery swapping has gained traction for high-turnover vehicles in dense urban zones. However, infrastructure rollout faces persistent challenges, including low utilization at many sites, land acquisition issues, and insufficient grid access in some regions. These factors must be addressed to keep infrastructure in step with rising demand.
The public sector remains central to addressing these challenges. National initiatives such as FAME and the PM E-Bus Sewa scheme are aligning incentives across vehicles, charging stations, and public transport systems. State governments are reinforcing this momentum by offering land, tax incentives, and concessional tariffs. Policy direction is gradually moving beyond subsidies toward long-term frameworks that promote scale and operational stability. This shift is enhancing investor confidence and allowing developers to plan with greater certainty.
Alongside infrastructure and policy, sustainability has become a critical concern. Lifecycle emissions, battery reuse, and material sourcing are receiving more regulatory and industry attention. India’s Battery Waste Management Rules and the push for cleaner energy inputs in charging infrastructure reflect this shift toward responsible growth. Sustainability considerations are now influencing procurement, investment, and compliance decisions across the value chain, reinforcing long-term resilience in the sector.
Supporting this ecosystem is a growing flow of capital. From 2019 to 2024, India attracted close to USD 60 billion in investments related to electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure. Investment activity spans vehicle assembly plants, battery manufacturing, and nationwide charging networks. Financial structuring is also evolving, with project finance models beginning to gain traction in capital-intensive infrastructure segments. However, limited availability of long-duration and risk-aligned debt continues to constrain scale. Bridging this gap will require closer alignment between regulators, public financiers, and private capital providers.
India now stands at a pivotal juncture in its electric mobility journey. The foundation has been laid across manufacturing, infrastructure, and policy. The challenge ahead lies in execution at scale. Meeting this challenge will require unlocking grid capacity, accelerating permitting and approvals, and channeling large-scale institutional capital. If these efforts succeed, India can position itself as a global leader in sustainable mobility and build a transport system that is inclusive, competitive, and future ready.
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(1113 KB)Last Updated On : Friday, 05-06-2026
