ElectricPe to enhance EV charge station utilisation in Bengaluru

As electric vehicle adoption in India shifts into the next gear, innovations are being seen around the charging infrastructure space, with Bengaluru-based ElectricPe aiming to enhance utilisation as well as RoI for charge-point operators (CPOs), while offering a seamless user experience to EV owners.

The company which began operations in June 2021, is developing a mobile-app-based platform that will integrate public chargers of all kinds – DC fast chargers, AC chargers, and swap stations – on its platform, and allow users to identify a charging station near them, charge their electric vehicle, and pay for the charging on the go.

With over 4,000 charging points already listed on its platform across Bengaluru, ElectricPe claims to have the highest number of charging locations integrated into its mobile application. The company, however, plans to take it slow and is yet to venture in any other city.

“We will continue to be in Bengaluru for some time, as we believe this is a game of availability. We would like to gain significant market share in one city, before expanding to others,” Avinash Sharma, co-founder and CEO, ElectricPe, told Autocar Professional.

The startup aims to make it a breeze for EV passenger car as well as two-wheeler owners to not just locate nearby charging stations, but zero down on the ones that are functional, as downtime is still a big challenge, owing to low utilisation of these charging stations in the present scenario.

“The benefit to the business which is investing and installing these charging stations is in terms of the utilisation and return on investments because as a single aggregation platform, ElectricPe is able to send customers their way.

“This also benefits the EV OEMs as their sales start increasing with the fear of range anxiety getting reduced, and more customers opting for these zero-tailpipe-emission vehicles. So, there is benefit for every stakeholder in the value chain,” Sharma added.

ElectricPe, which is yet to define a business model to generate revenues from its services, offers simple application programming interface (APIs) for CPOs to get enlisted on its platform. The company says its current focus is to solve the problem of discovery of public chargers, as well as mend the broken experience of payment at both the EV owner and CPO’s ends.

The startup raised $3 million (Rs 24 crore) in funding in November last year, and plans to invest the money in the development of its mobile-first, deep-tech platform. 

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