Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz India has pitched for a common platform that will provide real-time information about all the available EV charging stations operated by different service providers to make it more convenient for electric vehicle owners. Mercedes-Benz India MD and CEO Santosh Iyer believes that a common app would go a long way in enhancing the electric vehicle owners' convenience and help in pushing EV adoption rate in the country.

In an interaction with PTI, Iyer said that the electric vehicle charging infrastructure needs to be democratised in India for a faster growth in this space. "Today, if you buy an electric car, you need 3-4 different apps on your phone. What we are requesting the government is to come up with something like a UPI-based system," he said.

The Mercedes-Benz India official further stated that India is leading the global digital technology development, but when it comes to electric vehicle charging, there are still multiple apps, which reduces the consumers' convenience. "They (apps) don't talk to each other...payment gateways are not in sync..if it can be solved the convenience of EVs will be next level," Iyer said.

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Giving an example, he said that Mercedes-Benz customers in Germany and in many other countries around the world are capable of making payments for a variety of services, including charging their electric cars, from a singe application. However, in India, it is not possible. "But in India, we are not able to execute fully because we don't have a single charge point operator who can aggregate it. So this is the request we keep saying, make convenience the core of EV ownership," Iyer said.

He believes that if the system is made convenient, customers will shift to electric vehicles but if it remains difficult then they might want to stay out of the segment. Hence, the Indian government should come up with a platform and then all aggregators need to be there, Iyer believes. "Lets have at least one platform for payment and charging stuff," he said.

Interestingly, Iyer's comment comes at a time when in 2023, there were reports that the Indian government is preparing a master application to help the electric vehicle owners in the country to locate their respective closest EV charging stations on a map.

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