Concerns around underdeveloped or incompetent charging infrastructure aren’t new. Ever since electric vehicles became a thing, we have seen people complain about the chaos caused by poor charging infrastructure. It has been developing in most parts of the country, but at a much slower pace than the electric vehicles themselves. A recent post on X (previously Twitter) by Rattan Dhillon, an off-roader and rally driver, exposes the harsh reality of the charging infrastructure on Indian highways. The Mercedes G-Wagen EV that he was driving got stranded at midnight, due to incompetent charging stations mid-way.
Rattan has shared two different tweets about the same topic. He was travelling from Jaipur to Chandigarh in a Mercedes Benz electric G-wagen ( G580) that costs around Rs 3.5 Crores. The distance between Jaipur and Chandigarh is around 500 km. The G580 EV has a claimed range of 473km per charge, but delivers around 350-370 km in real life. In either case, a charging stop was inevitable. Rattan and his team knew this.
When it was finally time to plug the vehicle in, they located a charger along the way. It was a Tata power charging station. Even though the vehicle was plugged in, they were unable to initiate charging. Dhillon said that Tata power’s mobile application wasn’t working properly. The post even claims that Dhillon tried 4-5 chargers but was unable to initiate charging due to some error in the application. It was mid-night by then and the battery level had reached 5%.
Frustrated, he put out the first tweet, tagging the official handles of Tata Power and Tata EV, seeking urgent help. ‘What are we supposed to do? sleep in the car now? We have no other option. We need an immediate response. Waiting for your reply!’- says the post. He also attached screenshots of the error. It soon gained traction online, as Dhillon has around 20,000 followers on X.
Later, he also shared a video of the chaos, showing how the application was crashing when they tried to initiate charging. In the second post, he explained how unhelpful the customer support team of Tata power was. According to Dhillon, Tata’s response to hims was ‘ Oops, sorry you’re at a Tata EV charger we are from Tata motors team .' One team member allegedly said he was busy with family and couldn’t talk. Dhillon says he did not receive any real assistance or support from the team.
Dhillon further says that he got the call from the support team without sharing his number, and even expressed concerns about privacy.
Later, one of his friends, who goes by the name XRoaders on X, stepped in and initiated charging using the Tata Power application on his phone.
From what we understand, the problem here was with the charging application. It had developed some bug which was stopping charging from being initiated. It had to be fixed from the back end, which was not being done even after having multiple calls with the support team. His friend was, however, able to initiate charging remotely, saving Dhillon from additional trouble.
As his closing remarks, Dhillon says that even today, it is impossible to drive long distances in electric vehicles with confidence. Even something like the G580 EV which comes with a 116kWh battery pack may find it difficult to do long-distance touring.
It isn’t really the infrastructure that needs to be blamed in this case. The NH-152D expressway has ample charging stations. The culprit here, is the associated technology and software-driven functions that can be intimidating for at least some.