Essel enters the EV charging & battery swapping business

Essel Infraprojects Ltd. (EIL) has launched Essel Green Mobility Limited, under which the company will develop infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) charging and battery swapping in 20 cities in Uttar Pradesh. EIL will also deploy 25,000 e-rickshaws in the state.

EIL will be investing Rs. 1,750 crore in a phased manner. The plan is to setup 250 charging stations and 1,000 battery swapping stations in 20 cities of Uttar Pradesh, starting with Ghaziabad. The network would later be expanded to Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Noida, Meerut, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Allahabad and other cities. 

Battery swapping stations will be setup at every 2 sq. km and will interconnected via a mobile app. Drivers will be able to locate nearby swapping stations through the app. Swapping out the batteries is expected to take 2-3 minutes. EIL aims to bring down the running costs of EVs on par with CNG or other alternative fuels and also address the issue of last mile connectivity.