Siemens sees big opportunity in India for its electric mobility solutions

Electric vehicle charging in India presents a huge opportunity as the nation progresses towards achieving its ambitious green electricity and green mobility goals. And Siemens, with its gamut of products in this segment, is looking at making most of it.

Speaking at an investors’ meet recently, Sunil Mathur, managing director and chief executive officer, said, “[Siemens] sees much of the initial growth in the Indian electric vehicle (EV) market coming from commercial vehicles. Passenger vehicles are unlikely to be the first ones to get into e-vehicles.”

“In the next one year or two or three, [the market going to see] a lot of commercial vehicles. There are already tenders out there. The FAME program is gaining a lot more interest in the area of e-vehicles and e-charging,” said Mathur. 

In e-charging itself, Siemens sees an opportunity to bring in the entire grid connection, operation and maintenance, and charging infrastructure as well as the software to manage the whole charging station infrastructure.

“As you electrify your fleet, this fleet is going to start moving around the country, and you will need charging stations everywhere. You will need to bring electricity from the grid to the charging stations, and you will need to manage that entire fleet of e-vehicles as well as charging stations. We already have [the software to manage this] and use it in other parts of the world. [We] can implement here in the country as well,” said Mathur. 

Siemens has already signed a memorandum of Understanding with Switch Mobility, the electric vehicle arm of commercial vehicle major Ashok Leyland, to deliver cost-effective e-mobility solutions. These solutions will be available to Switch Mobility’s commercial electric vehicle customers in India. 

Under the partnership, Siemens will provide the charging infrastructure technology and the charging infrastructure management software solutions to enhance the performance of the charging stations. The infrastructure will be supplemented with a management software solution to enhance the energy-efficient operation.

Switch Mobility and Siemens will also collaborate on introducing new business models, such as E-Mobility as a service, integrated depot energy management, vehicle-to-grid, and onsite/offsite renewable energy sources by leveraging batteries from commercial vehicles.