Electric mobility in India: Charging Infrastructure, energy Storage, grid Integration, and policy Perspectives

• Systems-Level Assessment : The paper presents a comprehensive, grid-centric evaluation of India’s EV ecosystem, integrating transport and non-transport electrification, battery technologies, and renewable energy sources. • Segment-Specific Analysis : It emphasizes the disparity in EV adoption across different vehicle classes, noting that light-duty vehicles dominate, while medium- and heavy-duty electrification requires significant grid upgrades. • Charging Architectures and Grid Compatibility : The study critically examines various charging methodologies, addressing factors like charging speed and battery health, and their impacts on grid stability and infrastructure needs. • Techno-Economic Implications : The paper explores the role of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology and distributed battery storage as flexible grid assets, highlighting their potential for demand response and renewable energy integration. • Strategic Pathway for Sustainable Growth : It outlines key strategies for aligning policy, infrastructure development, and renewable energy integration, aiming to support India’s EV30@2030 and net-zero by 2070 goals. India’s electric mobility is shifting from a policy vision to a grid-critical energy transformation. In contrast to existing research that analyzes market trends, incentives, and charging expansion independently, this paper provides a systems-level, grid-centric assessment of India’s Electric Vehicle (EV) ecosystem. A structured framework, combining transport and non-transport electrification; duty-class segmentations; charging architectures; battery technologies; renewable energy (RES) integration; and deregulated electricity market participation, has been presented in this paper. India’s EV growth is highly skewed towards the light-duty segments, whereas medium- and heavy-duty electrification adds concentrated grid loading and infrastructure upgrade requirements. They critically evaluate various charging approaches, looking at charging speed, battery degradation, thermal stress, and grid compatibility. This paper investigates different charging architectures of EVs with respect to the urban density in India and highway electrification needs. The most important contribution is the techno-economic implications on the participation of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and distributed battery storage in deregulated electricity markets, depicting EVs as flexible grid assets. Aligning policy development, infrastructure construction, and efforts to integrate RES, this work maps a strategic and synergistic path towards sustainable EV deployment in alignment with India’s EV30@2030 and net-zero 2070 goals.