In addition to tapping into its 5,100-plus service centres in 2,300 cities, the country’s leading carmaker is also in talks with oil marketing companies (OMCs) and energy companies to create a charging ecosystem, which has been one of the biggest deterrents to faster adoption of electric mobility in the country, they said.
“They (Maruti) have started surveying their dealer workshops for charging points,” said a person aware of the plans. “The plan is to have at least one dedicated bay and two charge points at its service centres. The company has already started training service mechanics in Bengaluru.”
Some OMC insiders confirmed that the carmaker has reached out to them to book space for EV charging and servicing points in their retail outlets.
“Maruti has reached out to us. The terms and conditions are still under discussion,” a senior official at a state-run OMC said.
Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum together run over 81,000 retail outlets in the country, cornering nearly 90% retail market share.A Maruti Suzuki India spokesperson declined to comment.”We will come up with a range of solutions for our EV customers to remove their concerns about owning an EV,” Maruti Suzuki managing director Hisashi Takeuchi had said last week on the sidelines of the 64th Annual Convention of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) in New Delhi. “We will use the strength of our network to give confidence to the customers for after-sale support,” he had said.
To be priced between ₹20-25 lakh, Maruti plans to sell 3,000 units of the eVX in the first three months of its launch. The e-SUV will be produced at its Gujarat plant and will be retailed through the premium Nexa outlet.
This will be the first among the half-a-dozen EVs that Maruti plans to introduce over the next 6-7 years.
Maruti is entering into the segment at a time when sales in India’s nascent EV market have touched an eight-month-low. EV sales dropped 10% year on year to 6,335 units in August, according to data from the government’s Vahan portal. Charging infrastructure woes, range anxiety and high initial costs are among the factors cited for the decline.
To be sure, given the criticality of charging infrastructure, it’s not unusual for automakers to get their ecosystem ready ahead of their first EV launch and then keep on expanding it through collaborations with various stakeholders.
EV market leader Tata Motors that sells five electric car models has 5,600 public charging points while its sister company Tata Power Renewable Energy has installed 101,924 home charging points.