India has erected an impressive army of 29,000 public EV charging stations by late 2025—a ninefold leap in just three years that should signal a green transport revolution. Yet beneath these triumphant headlines lies an uncomfortable truth: most of these stations sit idle, their cables gathering dust whilst operators bleed money. Business plans promised 40-60% occupancy to recoup ₹15-50 lakh investments per fast charger, banking on surging EV adoption and predictable consumer behaviour. Instead, actual utilisation rates languish at 10-30% nationally, with rural installations dropping below 10%. This isn’t just a numbers mismatch—it’s a fundamental miscalculation of how Indians will embrace electric mobility, exposing flawed assumptions about adoption speed, charging habits, and location strategy that threaten the entire ecosystem’s viability.
The Great Deployment-Demand Disconnect
India’s charging infrastructure exploded from a modest 5,000 stations in 2022 to 29,277 by August 2025, propelled by PM E-DRIVE‘s ambitious ₹10,900 crore allocation targeting expressways, metropolitan centres, and emerging tier-2 cities. Charge point operators crafted business models anticipating 50% average utilisation within 18 months, anchored to forecasts of 30% EV market share by 2030 and expectations of 20-30 daily charging sessions per DC fast charger. These projections seemed reasonable on spreadsheets, aligned with NITI Aayog guidelines suggesting one charger per 6-20 electric vehicles would maintain healthy queue times and revenue streams.
Reality has delivered a sobering correction. Most operators now report sub-10% utilisation across their networks, with secondary urban and rural stations languishing at 5-15% occupancy whilst highway corridors manage 25-40%. Current vehicle-to-charger ratios exceed 1:235—vastly overshooting planned capacity relative to the actual EV population. Delhi represents the best-case scenario with 40% peak utilisation, yet states like Bihar average a dismal 8%, according to Ministry of Power dashboards. Even CCS2 fast chargers in Gujarat, which grew 140% year-on-year, achieve only 20% utilisation against projected 50%, with Vahan Portal data revealing approximately 27 vehicles per charging point—nowhere near the density needed for commercial sustainability.
Why Business Models Crashed Into Consumer Behaviour
The projection-reality chasm stems from multiple compounding errors. Actual EV penetration hovers at 2-3% for passenger vehicles versus optimistic 10% forecasts, with two-wheelers dominating adoption rather than the four-wheelers that drive fast-charging revenue. Operators fundamentally misread consumer behaviour: roughly 70% of EV owners charge primarily at home overnight, reserving public infrastructure for emergencies or long journeys. The fragmented app ecosystem—where users juggle 2-5 different applications to locate compatible chargers—creates friction that business plans never accounted for, whilst range anxiety paradoxically favours established networks over newer installations.
Financial models also overlooked critical operational realities. Demand charges consume 30-50% of operating expenses, whilst grid unreliability in tier-2 and tier-3 locations wasn’t factored into uptime calculations. These oversights inflated projected returns from 65% down to actual 15-25%. RedSeer reports reveal that 10-20% of installed chargers remain non-operational due to theft, wiring failures, or inadequate maintenance—effectively shrinking usable capacity further. As one Tata Power executive candidly admitted, actual performance shows a 30% shortfall from projections, attributable to interoperability gaps and consumers simply not knowing chargers exist near their routes.
Recalibrating for Sustainable Growth
Closing this utilisation gap demands fundamental strategy shifts from volume-focused deployment to intelligence-driven placement. Dynamic siting using real-time traffic and EV density dashboards—rather than static government tenders—could potentially lift utilisation by 25%, according to industry analysts. AI-driven load balancing across networks and ONDC-style unified app platforms targeting 40% occupancy represent technological pathways forward. Highway hubs that blend charging with retail amenities and advertising achieve 35-45% utilisation rates versus standalone stations’ 15%, suggesting hybrid revenue models offer better sustainability.
“Underutilisation—not supply—is the real problem. Energy access, interoperability, and visibility drive adoption,” warns analysis from YourStory, echoing sentiments across the sector. NITI Aayog stresses grid integration for baseload stability, projecting commercial viability requires minimum 30% utilisation thresholds. Experts advocate for India’s target of one million stations by 2030, but emphasise prioritising 50% utilisation over sheer installation numbers. Public chargers grew ninefold to 16,000 by 2024, yet projections demand 1.32 million for supporting 50 million EVs—a gap that can’t be bridged through infrastructure alone without corresponding demand materialisation. The path forward requires uncomfortable honesty: India built the charging stations, but misjudged when—and how—drivers would actually use them. Sustainable scale demands recalibration from optimistic spreadsheets to messy human behaviour.