Search for EV charging standards and you will drown in CCS, CHAdeMO, NACS and 350 kW ultra-fast charging. Almost none of it is relevant if you own an e-rickshaw, an e-loader or an electric scooter in India.
Those standards exist for passenger cars. The vehicles that make up the overwhelming majority of India’s electric fleet — two- and three-wheelers — live in a different part of the standards landscape, one that is rarely explained clearly. This page covers that part.
If your question is “which charger do I actually buy for my pack”, that is a different question and we answer it separately in our charger matching guide, which works through the voltage and current arithmetic. This page is about the standards framework around it.
IS 17017 is the standard that matters here
India’s EV charging framework is built on IS 17017, the Bureau of Indian Standards series covering electric vehicle conductive charging systems. It runs to multiple parts and sections, covering general requirements, connector dimensions, communication, safety and specific charging modes.
What matters for our purposes is that IS 17017 explicitly covers Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) AC charge points — the low-power charging that two- and three-wheelers use. It specifies functional, environmental, energy-measurement and safety requirements for these, built around a 240 V AC, 16 A supply.
That is a deliberately modest specification, and it is the correct one. A 240 V 16 A single-phase supply is about 3.8 kVA — roughly what an air conditioner draws, available at essentially any premises in the country without a new connection. It is precisely matched to the vehicles that need it.
Power levels, and where your vehicle sits
IS 17017 defines power levels according to vehicle type and charger capability. The one that concerns two- and three-wheeler owners is the lowest.
| Vehicle | Typical charging | Supply needed | Practical location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric scooter | Onboard or external charger, 0.5–1.5 kW | Ordinary 240 V socket | Home, shop, stairwell |
| E-rickshaw / e-cart | External charger, 1–2 kW | 240 V, 16 A | Home, depot, roadside charging shop |
| E-loader | External charger, 1.5–2.5 kW | 240 V, 16 A | Depot, commercial premises |
| Passenger car, AC | 3.3–22 kW | Single or three phase | Home, workplace, public |
| Passenger car, DC fast | 25–180 kW+ | Three phase, dedicated transformer | Public charging stations only |
The gap between rows three and five is the whole point. An e-rickshaw charger is a domestic appliance. A DC fast charger is an electrical installation requiring a sanctioned load increase, possibly a transformer, and a formal commissioning process. Confusing the two is why people ask us about CCS connectors for their e-rickshaw.
The connector landscape
Connector standards are where most of the confusion comes from, because the names travel further than the context.
What you will actually encounter on a 2- or 3-wheeler
Very often, nothing standardised at all. The great majority of e-rickshaws and electric scooters in India charge through a proprietary DC connector between an external charger and the battery pack — frequently an Anderson-type connector, a GX-series aviation plug, or a manufacturer’s own design. The charger plugs into an ordinary 240 V socket on one side and into the pack on the other.
This is why, when you order a charger from us, the question we ask that matters most in practice is not about standards at all — it is “please send a photograph of your connector”. More deliveries are delayed by connector mismatches than by every electrical question combined.
The named standards, briefly
| Name | What it is | Relevant to 2W/3W? |
|---|---|---|
| Bharat AC-001 | Early Indian AC charging specification, low power | Historically yes; largely superseded |
| Bharat DC-001 | Early Indian low-voltage DC fast charging | Retained in IS 17017 for low-voltage use |
| Type 6 / Type 7 (LECCS) | Light Electric Vehicle Conductive Charging System connectors | Yes — the direction of travel for new LEV deployments |
| Type 2 | European AC connector, widely used on Indian cars | No |
| CCS2 | DC fast charging for cars | No |
| CHAdeMO | Japanese DC fast standard | No, and rare in India generally |
The row worth watching is LECCS. As public charging for light electric vehicles grows, standardised connectors become genuinely valuable — a driver cannot use a public charge point if their vehicle takes a connector nobody stocks. New deployments increasingly favour these over the older Bharat specifications and over proprietary designs.
If you are buying a replacement charger for an existing vehicle, connector standards are largely irrelevant — you need whatever your pack has. If you are building charging infrastructure that strangers will use, standardisation is the entire point.
Battery swapping sits in its own category
Swapping bypasses charging standards altogether: instead of connecting a vehicle to a charger, you remove a depleted pack and fit a charged one, and the charging happens at a station out of the vehicle.
For commercial two- and three-wheelers this is attractive, because the constraint is vehicle downtime rather than energy cost. The engineering problem it creates is interoperability at a much deeper level than a connector: the pack’s physical form factor, its mounting and latching, the electrical connection, and the communication between the pack’s BMS, the vehicle and the swapping station all have to agree.
Standards work in this area has been taken up separately from the conductive-charging series, with distinct efforts for light electric vehicles and for buses. It is an area where the specifics are still moving, so treat any claim about mandated interoperability with caution and verify the current position with BIS before making a commercial commitment.
From an operator’s point of view, our practical view is in the fleet management guide: swapping earns its extra capital only when vehicle utilisation is genuinely the binding constraint.
What the standards mean for safety
Beyond connectors and power levels, the parts of IS 17017 that matter most to an ordinary owner are the safety requirements, because these are what a cheap charger quietly omits.
Electrical isolation
The charger must isolate the vehicle from mains. A failure here puts mains potential on a battery pack a person is touching. This is the single most important thing a charger does that is invisible when it is working.
Protective earthing
A metal-bodied charger must be earthed, and the installation must have a working earth. Many Indian premises do not. This is worth checking before blaming a charger for a shock.
Residual current protection
An RCD or RCBO on the charging circuit disconnects on earth leakage. For a charger used outdoors or in a wet area, this is not optional.
Overcurrent and short-circuit protection
On both the mains side and the output side.
Environmental rating
A charger used in a yard sees dust and rain. An indoor-rated unit in an outdoor location will fail, and how it fails matters.
Energy measurement
Where charging is sold, metering accuracy is a legal-metrology question, not just an engineering one.
What the standard assumes, and what Indian premises actually provide
IS 17017 assumes a 240 V supply with a functioning protective earth and appropriate circuit protection. That assumption is the gap between the standard and reality in a great many places where e-rickshaws are actually charged, and it is where the real risk sits.
Four problems recur, and none of them is the charger’s fault.
The earth that is not there
An enormous number of Indian premises have an earth connection that exists as a wire but not as a functioning path to ground — corroded electrode, dried-out soil around it, or a connection that was never made properly. Everything downstream assumes it works.
A metal-bodied charger with a faulty internal isolation barrier and no working earth puts mains potential on the case. With a working earth, the same fault trips a breaker harmlessly. Testing earth resistance takes a competent electrician twenty minutes and is the single highest-value safety check available at a charging location.
The extension lead
A charger drawing 8–10 A continuously for five hours through a thin domestic extension lead is an entirely ordinary sight and a genuinely bad idea. Extension leads are sized for intermittent loads; a continuous draw near their rating heats them along their length, and coiled leads are worse because they cannot shed that heat.
If a charger cannot reach a fixed socket, the answer is another socket, not a longer lead.
No residual current protection
An RCD or RCBO disconnects the supply when current leaks to earth — through damaged insulation, through water, or through a person. For charging that happens outdoors, in a yard, or anywhere that gets wet, this is the protection that matters most, and it is absent from the majority of older Indian installations.
Charging in the wrong place
The 2022 electric two-wheeler fires were shaped less by chemistry than by location: packs charging in stairwells, in corridors, beside beds. A charging pack holds several kilowatt-hours of energy. It belongs on a hard non-flammable surface, with space around it, not blocking the only route out of a building.
Does the earth actually work, measured rather than assumed? Is there residual current protection on the circuit? Is the charger plugged into a fixed socket rather than an extension lead? And if the pack failed right now, would anyone be trapped? None of these is about the charger you bought.
Where our chargers sit
Everything we build for two- and three-wheelers is external, SMPS-based, and designed to run from an ordinary 240 V single-phase supply — the LEV AC case the standard describes. Output side, they terminate at the voltage the pack requires rather than at a standardised connector, because that is what the installed base actually needs.
| Charger | Output | Intended pack | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 58V · 25A Lithium | 58.4 V, 25 A | 16S LFP, sold as “48V lithium” | ₹5,250 |
| 69V · 22A Lithium | 69.4 V, 22 A | 19S LFP, sold as “60V lithium” | ₹5,460 |
| 48V · 18A | 48 V system, 18 A | 48 V e-rickshaw packs | ₹4,200 |
| 1500 Volt EV Charger | High output, aluminium body | Heavy-duty e-rickshaw and e-cart | ₹6,300 |
58V · 25A Lithium EV Charger
SMPS control, charge-level indicators, runs from an ordinary 240 V supply. The correct charger for a 16-cell LFP pack.
₹5,250 incl. GST · 12-month warranty
Public charging for light EVs
Almost everything above concerns a charger you own and a vehicle you own. Shared infrastructure is a different problem, and it is the reason connector standardisation exists at all.
A driver at a public charge point cannot use a socket their vehicle does not match, and an operator cannot stock a dozen proprietary connectors. That mutual dependence is what standards solve, and it is why LECCS-type connectors matter for public deployment in a way they simply do not for a replacement charger.
The related question is who owns the charger. On the model most common in India for two- and three-wheelers, the charging point provides a metered socket and the driver brings their own charger — which sidesteps connector standardisation entirely but gives the operator no control over what gets plugged in. The alternative, where the site provides chargers, requires either standardised connectors or a set of adaptors. Neither model has settled, and both exist within a few streets of each other in most Indian cities.
What actually matters when you buy
Having read all of the above, here is the honest summary of how much of it should influence a purchase.
Standards compliance matters for the safety features listed earlier — isolation, earthing, protection, environmental rating. Ask about these.
Connector standards mostly do not matter for a replacement charger on an existing vehicle. You need what your pack has. Photograph it.
Power level does not matter as a category. What matters is the specific voltage and current your pack requires, which is arithmetic rather than classification — covered in the charger matching guide.
Everything about CCS, CHAdeMO and fast charging is irrelevant to a two- or three-wheeler, and any seller who brings it up in that context is either confused or hoping you are.
If you are building public charging infrastructure rather than buying a charger, the calculus inverts entirely and standardisation becomes the central concern — we cover the practical side of that in building an EV charging station.