Charging e-rickshaws is a business. In most Indian cities there are drivers paying ₹60 to ₹100 a night to charge somewhere that is not their home, because they live where there is no safe outdoor socket, or because they simply have nowhere to leave a vehicle plugged in for six hours.
Setting up to serve them is more involved than running an extension lead into a yard, and rather less involved than the phrase “charging station” suggests. This page walks through what is actually required, in the order you have to do it.
This is about low-power AC charging for two- and three-wheelers — the vehicles that need 1–2 kW each from an ordinary supply. DC fast charging for cars is a different undertaking entirely, involving three-phase supply, a dedicated transformer and a much larger investment.
Step one: work out your load before anything else
Everything downstream is determined by this number, and getting it wrong is the most expensive mistake available.
A single e-rickshaw charger draws 1 to 2 kW. Ten of them is 10–20 kW. That is well beyond a domestic connection and into commercial supply territory, which means an application to your distribution company rather than a trip to the market.
| Points | Connected load | Realistic simultaneous demand | Supply implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2–4 | 3–8 kW | 3–8 kW | Existing commercial connection may suffice |
| 6–10 | 9–20 kW | 8–18 kW | Load enhancement, likely three phase |
| 15–25 | 22–50 kW | 18–40 kW | Three phase, possibly dedicated transformer |
| 30+ | 45 kW+ | 35 kW+ | HT connection, dedicated transformer |
Note that simultaneous demand is lower than connected load, and understanding why is worth money. Charging is not a constant draw — each charger runs at full current during its constant-current phase, then tapers over the final 45 to 60 minutes. If vehicles arrive over a two-hour window rather than all at once, your peak is meaningfully below the sum of the nameplates.
But do not design on optimism. Size the incoming supply, cabling and protection for something close to the full connected load, because the one evening everybody arrives together is the evening it matters.
Step two: sanctioned load and the electricity connection
This is the step that takes longest and that people start last.
Your premises has a sanctioned load — the maximum demand your connection is approved for. Exceeding it draws penalties, and in many cases the supply simply will not hold. Adding ten chargers to a shop connection sanctioned for 5 kW does not work.
You will need to apply to your distribution licensee — BSES or Tata Power in Delhi, and the equivalent elsewhere — for load enhancement, and for a commercial tariff category if you are selling charging. Several states have introduced concessional EV charging tariffs and simplified connection procedures, and some offer subsidies for public charging infrastructure. These vary considerably by state and change often, so treat this as a question for your local licensee rather than something to establish from a web page.
What is my current sanctioned load? What would enhancement to my required load cost, and how long does it take? Is there an EV charging tariff category in this state, and does my use qualify? The answers determine whether the project is viable before you have spent anything.
Step three: the electrical installation
The design itself is not exotic. It is ordinary commercial electrical work, done properly.
Distribution board and protection
Every charging point gets its own MCB. The whole installation sits behind an RCD or RCBO providing earth-leakage protection — not optional where vehicles, damp ground and members of the public coexist.
Cable sizing
Size for the full load with margin, not for the average. Undersized cable heats, drops voltage, makes every charger derate, and eventually fails at a joint. This is the most common corner cut and the most expensive to correct later.
Earthing
A proper earth electrode with measured resistance. Many premises have an earth that exists on paper only. Test it rather than assuming it.
Load balancing across phases
On a three-phase supply, distribute charging points evenly across phases. An unbalanced load wastes capacity and can attract penalties.
Sockets and mounting
Industrial-rated sockets at a height that keeps them out of standing water, on a wall rather than a post where possible. Weatherproof enclosures if any part is outdoors.
Metering
Sub-metering per point if you bill by consumption. If you bill a flat rate per charge, you still want metering to know your own costs.
Step four: layout and physical design
The electrical side gets the attention; the layout determines whether the place actually works.
Vehicle circulation. An e-rickshaw is around 2.6 m long and turns poorly in reverse. Plan how vehicles enter, park, and leave without having to be manoeuvred past each other. A layout that requires shuffling is a layout that will be resented.
Cable management. Charging leads across a walking route are a trip hazard and get damaged. Overhead drops or wall-mounted reels cost more and pay for themselves in cable replacement alone.
Shade. Genuinely important, not a comfort. A vehicle charging in direct afternoon sun runs a pack 10–15 °C hotter, and calendar ageing roughly doubles for every 10 °C above about 30. Shade protects your customers’ batteries, which is a genuine point of difference — and it protects your chargers too.
Ventilation. Chargers are convection or fan cooled and reject heat continuously. A row of them in an enclosed space raises ambient temperature for everything, including the batteries.
Fire separation and access. Lithium packs are high energy density. Keep charging away from anything flammable, keep a clear route out, and have appropriate extinguishing equipment. This is prudence, and depending on your premises it may also be a licensing condition.
Security. Vehicles are left unattended for hours. Lighting, cameras and a boundary matter to whether drivers use you.
Step five: the numbers
Rough economics for a ten-point installation, to indicate the shape rather than to quote your project.
| Item | Indicative cost |
|---|---|
| Load enhancement and connection charges | Highly variable — obtain a quotation first |
| Distribution board, protection, metering | ₹25,000–50,000 |
| Cabling and installation labour | ₹40,000–80,000 |
| 10 chargers at ₹5,000–6,000 | ₹50,000–60,000 |
| Earthing, sockets, enclosures | ₹20,000–35,000 |
| Shade structure, lighting, security | ₹50,000–150,000 |
Running economics per charge: an e-rickshaw pack takes roughly 5–6 kWh from the wall for a full charge. At a commercial tariff of ₹8–10 per unit that is ₹40–60 of electricity. Charging ₹80–100 leaves ₹30–50 gross per vehicle per session, against which you set rent, labour, losses and depreciation.
Ten points turning over once a night, 300 nights a year, is 3,000 sessions — something in the region of ₹90,000 to ₹150,000 gross annually. That is a real business at small scale, and it is why these operations exist on the edge of every Indian city. It is not a large one, and anyone projecting more should check their utilisation assumption hard: the constraint is almost always how many vehicles you can actually attract, not how many points you installed.
Step six: commissioning
Before the first paying customer:
- Measure earth resistance and record it.
- Test every RCD with a proper tester, not the button.
- Load-test at full capacity — run every point simultaneously and measure voltage at the furthest socket. Significant drop means undersized cable, and you want to find that now.
- Thermal check under load — after two hours at full load, check cable terminations and the distribution board for warmth. Any hot joint is a fault.
- Verify metering against a known load.
- Document it — a circuit schedule, test results and dates. This matters for insurance and for whoever maintains it after you.
Chargers for charging points
We supply e-rickshaw and e-cart chargers in quantity to depots and charging businesses across India, with the same 12- to 24-month warranty as single units.
From ₹4,200 incl. GST
Running it: what actually goes wrong
The build is the easy part. Operations is where these businesses succeed or quietly fail, and the problems are consistent enough to list.
Utilisation, not capacity, is the constraint
Ten points that each turn over once a night is a business. Ten points that turn over four times a week is not. Almost every projection we have seen from someone planning a charging point assumes full utilisation from month one, and almost none achieves it. Drivers have existing arrangements, and moving them takes time, price, or something they cannot get elsewhere — security, shade, reliability.
Build for the demand you can demonstrate, and leave the electrical installation sized to expand. Adding chargers to a distribution board designed with spare ways is trivial; enhancing a sanctioned load twice is not.
Flat rate or metered?
A flat fee per charge is simple and is what most drivers expect. It also means a driver with a tired, inefficient lead-acid pack that draws 8 kWh pays the same as one with a lithium pack drawing 5.5 kWh. Metered billing is fairer and rewards the customers you want, but it needs per-point metering, and where you are selling electricity by measure there are legal-metrology considerations. Most small operations run flat rate and simply refuse the worst offenders.
Cable and connector wear
The highest-frequency maintenance item by a wide margin. Every connection is a mating cycle, and connectors degrade with use, arcing slightly on connection and disconnection. A blackened or warm connector housing is a fault developing, not cosmetic wear. Budget for replacements and inspect on a schedule rather than waiting for failure.
The customer’s battery is not your problem, until it is
A driver whose pack is failing will experience it at your premises, and will frequently conclude your charger caused it. Being able to distinguish the two — a meter on the pack, checking what voltage it actually reaches — protects your reputation and takes two minutes. Our charger guide has a diagnostic table worth printing out.
Fire risk is real and manageable
You are concentrating a great deal of stored energy in one place, charged by equipment you did not build, in vehicles you do not maintain. Keep charging away from anything flammable, maintain clear access, have appropriate extinguishing equipment, and refuse visibly damaged or swollen packs. A driver who is annoyed at being turned away is a much better outcome than the alternative.
Where charging points fail as businesses
Three patterns account for most of the ones that close.
Built for a demand that was assumed rather than measured. Twenty points installed on the expectation that drivers will come, when the surrounding area supports eight. The electrical work is sunk and cannot be scaled back.
Undercut on price with no differentiation. Charging is a commodity if all you sell is electricity. Operations that hold their customers offer something else — secure overnight parking, shade, someone who will look at a failing battery, reliability when the grid is poor.
Electrical corners cut at the start. Undersized cable and inadequate protection do not fail immediately. They fail in year two, at a joint, expensively, and often in a way that closes the business while it is repaired.
Two decisions worth making early
Do you supply the chargers, or do drivers bring their own? Supplying them means you control quality and can serve any vehicle, but you carry the capital and the failures. Letting drivers bring their own means you are effectively selling metered sockets — simpler, lower margin, and you have no control over what gets plugged in. Most established operations supply the chargers.
Will you also sell or service batteries? A charging point sees every vehicle in its area regularly, which is an unusually good position from which to notice a failing pack. Drivers who trust you to charge will ask you about replacement. Whether you want to be in that business is a separate question, but the opportunity arrives whether you plan for it or not.
For the electrical detail of what sits inside the chargers themselves, see our companion piece on the power electronics inside a charging station. If you are running vehicles rather than serving them, the fleet guide covers depot charging from the operator’s side.