By Team PluginIndia
We get many questions from you about how to set up electric vehicle charging stations, if it is viable as a business, what are the requirements and so on. Many of you are interested in setting up charging infrastructure in your town or city to enable more people and businesses to use electric vehicles.
Here is a startup called OnePlug that is enabling "chargeprenuers" like yourself to achieve your goals.
OnePlug is founded by Mr Manish Agrawal, who along with his team has created affordable, safe charging equipment for all electric vehicles.
In this article of Let's Chat EVs, we speak to Manish.
We get many questions from you about how to set up electric vehicle charging stations, if it is viable as a business, what are the requirements and so on. Many of you are interested in setting up charging infrastructure in your town or city to enable more people and businesses to use electric vehicles.
Here is a startup called OnePlug that is enabling "chargeprenuers" like yourself to achieve your goals.
OnePlug is founded by Mr Manish Agrawal, who along with his team has created affordable, safe charging equipment for all electric vehicles.
In this article of Let's Chat EVs, we speak to Manish.
Video Interview
Raphae :
So, Manish we first interacted with your team in February 2019. We organized the Delhi-Dehradun electric car rally. Saw the early version of the OnePlug charging equipment in action. Back then it was a dumb un-intelligent charger. Since then the team has added a lot of features, the hardware, and software. We will talk about those later but first will you please introduce OnePlug to our viewers and what is our vision behind starting the company itself.
Manish :
So, OnePlug. The basic reason behind starting OnePlug is to, as you know OnePlug is a technology company specially set up to fill a gap in the market when it comes to EVSE. So when we started this company we saw a huge gap. The EVs which were there, those are the EVs we do not recognise as EVs - the e-rickshaws, the 2 Wheelers. We did not have too many cars then but we still had the market for 2 and 3 wheelers and there was no dedicated company that was setting up charging infrastructure. That was the one motivation. The second was that most of the electric vehicle's EVSE were very expensive. They were not very affordable. Third, the technology was not matured to a level where it was, there was no Indianisation that was done. so, ONEPLUG was started with a vision to develop an Indianised technology to bring out affordable EVSE so that the growth of electric vehicles can be promoted in India. So that was the basic vision.
Raphae :
Okay, Manish. Thanks for that.
Let's get right into the Charging units themselves. Let's talk about the AC Charging equipment and the hardware. We would like to understand the hardware features of your AC OnePlug charging equipment could you give us a rundown of what are the features and why they are there.
Manish :
So, Raphae the last time when you saw OnePlug, as you rightly said, it was a dumb and un-intelligent charging station. Though it had all the safety features built-in. Like it had over-voltage protection, under-voltage protection, leakage current protection, residual current protection. These are basically the protections which a normal 3 pin socket does not have it. So when we started OnePlug we did a survey and realised that most of Indians are still charging their EV with a normal 15 AMP socket or a 5AMP socket which had all these problems of not having voltage protection or current protection. We had provided that in the 1st release. Now what we have done as a hardware improvement in OnePlug AC charging is we have taken a leap forward, now we are on the next level where all our equipment of OnePlug comes with surge protection which was not there. So surge is something which is very dangerous. You cannot predict a surge. Most often we recognise a surge as only that happens through lightning. Thus, it is the most understandable surge but it is also on the probability, it is the least surge that can happen. The probability of having it is very very low. But the surge that happens which you don't realise is whenever you switch on or switch off a AC or whenever you switch on or switch off a refrigerator or you take out a socket and suddenly take it out, every time the sudden demand in voltage will create a surge in circuit and that surge can make the EVSE to go down. Our all the OnePlug comes with a surge protection up to 4000V which is a significant amount of protection which we believe will cover 99.99 % of the surge cases. That's the surge protection which we have already added and is a homegrown solution. We are now using a surge protection device. It's a home grown solution which has been used to keep the cost in mind. and second what we have added is the basic protection which was always there but now OnPlug has gone to the next level where it identifies if you have proper earthing or not and your earthing is something which you do it today, tomorrow it can go bad. It's a very common case, people don't realise. They set up charging stations, the earthing will be there proper but after some time either the ingredients that were put for earthing are turn bad or things like that, the earthing can go bad over time. So, OnePlug station every time it switches on it checks for earthing, so it ensures that you always have earthing because it is required for when you are charging 3 wheeler. The third thing we have added is , we have added authorization authentication where each charger has a unique key that generates an OTP which can only be used for that charger. This is an authorization that was not there. whether or not I am authorized to use the charger. So now, that problem is solved. Yes, if I am a fleet owner and I want this charger to be authorized to be used only for my driver. This problem has been solved now.
More importantly, we have added something which we learned from the experience. If time permits I will narrate a small story that happened. When we started this charging electric vehicle there were 100 vehicles at one particular point. What we realized that a lot of mobile calls started getting dropped, I mean there was a problem, we immediately figured out that it could only be because of the EMF. then our chargers, not only our chargers but any chargers create an EMF field, and there in the vicinity of 100 chargers 50 chargers create a significant enough feed for calls to get disturbed, calls to get dropped. Now the next level of OnePlug charger has taken care of this and now we have
EMF field shielding completely done so our bigger installations will not have the call drop.
So, Manish we first interacted with your team in February 2019. We organized the Delhi-Dehradun electric car rally. Saw the early version of the OnePlug charging equipment in action. Back then it was a dumb un-intelligent charger. Since then the team has added a lot of features, the hardware, and software. We will talk about those later but first will you please introduce OnePlug to our viewers and what is our vision behind starting the company itself.
Manish :
So, OnePlug. The basic reason behind starting OnePlug is to, as you know OnePlug is a technology company specially set up to fill a gap in the market when it comes to EVSE. So when we started this company we saw a huge gap. The EVs which were there, those are the EVs we do not recognise as EVs - the e-rickshaws, the 2 Wheelers. We did not have too many cars then but we still had the market for 2 and 3 wheelers and there was no dedicated company that was setting up charging infrastructure. That was the one motivation. The second was that most of the electric vehicle's EVSE were very expensive. They were not very affordable. Third, the technology was not matured to a level where it was, there was no Indianisation that was done. so, ONEPLUG was started with a vision to develop an Indianised technology to bring out affordable EVSE so that the growth of electric vehicles can be promoted in India. So that was the basic vision.
Raphae :
Okay, Manish. Thanks for that.
Let's get right into the Charging units themselves. Let's talk about the AC Charging equipment and the hardware. We would like to understand the hardware features of your AC OnePlug charging equipment could you give us a rundown of what are the features and why they are there.
Manish :
So, Raphae the last time when you saw OnePlug, as you rightly said, it was a dumb and un-intelligent charging station. Though it had all the safety features built-in. Like it had over-voltage protection, under-voltage protection, leakage current protection, residual current protection. These are basically the protections which a normal 3 pin socket does not have it. So when we started OnePlug we did a survey and realised that most of Indians are still charging their EV with a normal 15 AMP socket or a 5AMP socket which had all these problems of not having voltage protection or current protection. We had provided that in the 1st release. Now what we have done as a hardware improvement in OnePlug AC charging is we have taken a leap forward, now we are on the next level where all our equipment of OnePlug comes with surge protection which was not there. So surge is something which is very dangerous. You cannot predict a surge. Most often we recognise a surge as only that happens through lightning. Thus, it is the most understandable surge but it is also on the probability, it is the least surge that can happen. The probability of having it is very very low. But the surge that happens which you don't realise is whenever you switch on or switch off a AC or whenever you switch on or switch off a refrigerator or you take out a socket and suddenly take it out, every time the sudden demand in voltage will create a surge in circuit and that surge can make the EVSE to go down. Our all the OnePlug comes with a surge protection up to 4000V which is a significant amount of protection which we believe will cover 99.99 % of the surge cases. That's the surge protection which we have already added and is a homegrown solution. We are now using a surge protection device. It's a home grown solution which has been used to keep the cost in mind. and second what we have added is the basic protection which was always there but now OnPlug has gone to the next level where it identifies if you have proper earthing or not and your earthing is something which you do it today, tomorrow it can go bad. It's a very common case, people don't realise. They set up charging stations, the earthing will be there proper but after some time either the ingredients that were put for earthing are turn bad or things like that, the earthing can go bad over time. So, OnePlug station every time it switches on it checks for earthing, so it ensures that you always have earthing because it is required for when you are charging 3 wheeler. The third thing we have added is , we have added authorization authentication where each charger has a unique key that generates an OTP which can only be used for that charger. This is an authorization that was not there. whether or not I am authorized to use the charger. So now, that problem is solved. Yes, if I am a fleet owner and I want this charger to be authorized to be used only for my driver. This problem has been solved now.
More importantly, we have added something which we learned from the experience. If time permits I will narrate a small story that happened. When we started this charging electric vehicle there were 100 vehicles at one particular point. What we realized that a lot of mobile calls started getting dropped, I mean there was a problem, we immediately figured out that it could only be because of the EMF. then our chargers, not only our chargers but any chargers create an EMF field, and there in the vicinity of 100 chargers 50 chargers create a significant enough feed for calls to get disturbed, calls to get dropped. Now the next level of OnePlug charger has taken care of this and now we have
EMF field shielding completely done so our bigger installations will not have the call drop.
 |  |
V1.0 of OnePlug when PluginIndia organized Delhi to Dehradun Electric Car rally
Raphae :
That's fantastic. Manish you have even thought of some very innovative ways to do it. Tell us little bit more about the fire safety and how you ensured that?
Manish :
yeah! so fire safety, the previous version had some amount of wood and plastic which was not fire-resistant. Now, we have worked down that part and now the entire structure has been converted from wall mount to a, now it's a pole type structure that has to be fixed on a floor. With a height which is very convenient for people to plug-in and plug-out. The entire structure is made of steel. So, that portion of fire-safety is taken care of, but with steel, the additional risk of short circuits and all that happens, so we have to take care of certain things that the short circuits do not happen, the circuit is properly shielded. Very safe system compared to Version 1. Version 2 is far advanced when it comes to fire safety.
Raphae :
Certainly, I mean, I think, I was wrong in calling it a dumb charger earlier. It was doing a lot before also. Compared to that one this is really intelligent
Manish :
That was an electrical device and now we call it an electrical software device that has an intelligent software built into it which makes it intelligent.
I mean, with electricals we had sorted most of the things, there was a logic part which was remaining and there were certain things which we learnt in the field like EMF shielding which even in our wildest dreams also we had not thought of that we will require EMF Shielding.
Raphae :
What is the story that you had said, you would say if there was time.
Manish :
So the story goes like that we had set up a charging station of 50 points and then moved on to the setting up of the next charging station of close to 100 points. One thing we noticed is that whenever I would call my supervisor or the person who is in charge there and he would always not take my call. Then whenever I call him in off-time when there are not too many people, he would be able to take my call and I ask him what happened tonight, he would say, "Sir, the entire lot was full. There was not even a single-vehicle." So I said, " Were you busy. He said, "No, I was not busy. It is the network which is doing this funny thing". Then, we saw this very consistently. This has always been happening that whenever there are so many vehicles that are getting charged, my calls are getting dropped. Then the investigation started that it has something to with EMF. This was a very expensive experiment, equipment which normally normal manufacture would not have. so we had access to that in our lab. so, when we tested the EMF field then we figured out that it's going to a level where there is a possibility of, it's the same way a mobile phone jammer or something was.We were creating a jammer in our own station. That was a funny part but we solved it. Now at our stations, you can talk, you can do video calls, I mean unless there is a disturbance in the network.
Raphae :
Was there some hardware that you installed, some specific thing that you installed in the charger to stop the EMF?
Manish :
Yeah, so basically we have two variants we have a gun version which has a, which runs on a 48 V and provides a current of 18Amp to 25 Amps. It is a DC charger that is specifically used for charging an e-rickshaw. Now, e-rickshaws have a very interesting problem. Most of the e-rickshaws owners carry their own chargers. Those chargers are either transformer-based which are low cost or few of them will be an SMPS based but not of very higher efficiency. So we have multiple problems here. So one, the charger which they were carrying of the SMPS base which is not very high efficiency was creating a lot of EMF fields which was creating a problem of mobile call drop. So, we started putting up and came up with our own charger which is an inbuilt DC charger, which has an efficiency of close to 90%. So, compared to the chargers which they were earlier carrying which had an efficiency of 30% to 70%. Its a significant jump. So if an entrepreneur wants to set up a charging station he would save electricity of anywhere up to 50% to 40% of electricity just by using our chargers. The technology and all that is a bonus.
That's fantastic. Manish you have even thought of some very innovative ways to do it. Tell us little bit more about the fire safety and how you ensured that?
Manish :
yeah! so fire safety, the previous version had some amount of wood and plastic which was not fire-resistant. Now, we have worked down that part and now the entire structure has been converted from wall mount to a, now it's a pole type structure that has to be fixed on a floor. With a height which is very convenient for people to plug-in and plug-out. The entire structure is made of steel. So, that portion of fire-safety is taken care of, but with steel, the additional risk of short circuits and all that happens, so we have to take care of certain things that the short circuits do not happen, the circuit is properly shielded. Very safe system compared to Version 1. Version 2 is far advanced when it comes to fire safety.
Raphae :
Certainly, I mean, I think, I was wrong in calling it a dumb charger earlier. It was doing a lot before also. Compared to that one this is really intelligent
Manish :
That was an electrical device and now we call it an electrical software device that has an intelligent software built into it which makes it intelligent.
I mean, with electricals we had sorted most of the things, there was a logic part which was remaining and there were certain things which we learnt in the field like EMF shielding which even in our wildest dreams also we had not thought of that we will require EMF Shielding.
Raphae :
What is the story that you had said, you would say if there was time.
Manish :
So the story goes like that we had set up a charging station of 50 points and then moved on to the setting up of the next charging station of close to 100 points. One thing we noticed is that whenever I would call my supervisor or the person who is in charge there and he would always not take my call. Then whenever I call him in off-time when there are not too many people, he would be able to take my call and I ask him what happened tonight, he would say, "Sir, the entire lot was full. There was not even a single-vehicle." So I said, " Were you busy. He said, "No, I was not busy. It is the network which is doing this funny thing". Then, we saw this very consistently. This has always been happening that whenever there are so many vehicles that are getting charged, my calls are getting dropped. Then the investigation started that it has something to with EMF. This was a very expensive experiment, equipment which normally normal manufacture would not have. so we had access to that in our lab. so, when we tested the EMF field then we figured out that it's going to a level where there is a possibility of, it's the same way a mobile phone jammer or something was.We were creating a jammer in our own station. That was a funny part but we solved it. Now at our stations, you can talk, you can do video calls, I mean unless there is a disturbance in the network.
Raphae :
Was there some hardware that you installed, some specific thing that you installed in the charger to stop the EMF?
Manish :
Yeah, so basically we have two variants we have a gun version which has a, which runs on a 48 V and provides a current of 18Amp to 25 Amps. It is a DC charger that is specifically used for charging an e-rickshaw. Now, e-rickshaws have a very interesting problem. Most of the e-rickshaws owners carry their own chargers. Those chargers are either transformer-based which are low cost or few of them will be an SMPS based but not of very higher efficiency. So we have multiple problems here. So one, the charger which they were carrying of the SMPS base which is not very high efficiency was creating a lot of EMF fields which was creating a problem of mobile call drop. So, we started putting up and came up with our own charger which is an inbuilt DC charger, which has an efficiency of close to 90%. So, compared to the chargers which they were earlier carrying which had an efficiency of 30% to 70%. Its a significant jump. So if an entrepreneur wants to set up a charging station he would save electricity of anywhere up to 50% to 40% of electricity just by using our chargers. The technology and all that is a bonus.
 |  |
Raphae :
You just mentioned that your chargers don't require much connectivity or even a smartphone, tell us a little bit more how it goes about doing authentication in that case. Are there some mathematics-based algorithms used what are you doing over there?
Manish :
Yeah, so its a proprietary technology. It's a patent technology what we basically use, we use a lot of prime numbers and some very advanced level of mathematics to compress that entire packet to this encapsulation and on top of that we do encryption where we encapsulate the entire charging request into a very small mathematical number which will when decrypted and when encapsulated will tell you everything like for example it will tell you what time and date this charging request is for, number one. Number two, it will tell you how many Watts of charging power this request is for, Number three what is the duration of charging that you want this charging request to run for. Number four, for which charger point is this request is for. Number five, it can also tell you whether you are a part of a special group so that special group policies can be applied. All this we compress it using prime numbers and all that advanced mathematics and encapsulated in a very small packet and then encrypted so it becomes a 6 digit integer. That 6 digit integer is self-contained information that can be keyed now into keypad which is not connected to the internet. So this is the same technology which people use at the spaceship. Like your spaceship is not always connected. Like ISS is not always connected. A command takes half an hour to reach the Earth. so, it has to be an autonomous system that has to understand the command and run on its own. It runs like that. It does not require the internet to take a request. It requires internet only in case of, if it has to feedback a request that I am down. For that also we are using a very interesting thing combining a lot of request and then connecting. With now most of the smart cities are connected. Their energy database is connected. You can them and find out which areas the power has gone out. Raphae :
Right, you are understanding the local difficulties that there may not be network everywhere and not everyone may have access to 4G SIM, DataSIM or even a smart phone. So this takes into account and you are using high-tech tool to solve a problem in such a way that it suits the Indian requirement. That is really awesome. Manish.
Let's move on to the next questions. You told us that your team has worked extensively on software that accompanies OnePlug charging equipment. Do tell us a little bit about the features of the software, the app features and the various things that go into it.
Raphae :
That is really awesome. Manish.
Let's move on to the next questions. You told us that your team has worked extensively on software that accompanies OnePlug charging equipment. Do tell us a little bit about the features of the software, the app features and the various things that go into it.
Manish :
So when we talk about Software, there is two kinds of software that the team has built over time.
So one is a mobile App that is user-facing which goes for the user to book a charger. This app is.. if you have seen, the mobile app for charging has been there in the market for the last 7-8 years because it has started from the western world. The Charge Point brought this app, then there are so many western companies who bought this app. There is a significant difference in the way we have designed our app. We have not followed the suit which they have done it. It's a different interface. one of the interfaces which we differ from the western world is we provide what kind of facility does the charging station has. What we realize, in India, still most of the charging happens in a slow charging environment or in an environment where the user has to spend anywhere between half an hour to two hours to a location to charge their vehicle. based on what kind of vehicle he is carrying. So we thought it's a good idea if we can let the user know or let the user search the charging station which has certain facilities, like library area, like video game area, like free wifi, like you can add n-number of facilities to a charging station and user would be able to search it. Basic things still are available on our app like you can search what are the things which are available in the vicinity of my area. More advanced things like recommendation engine which has still not picked up in the western world, now its the first time, we have put in a recommendation engine into a charging station and now this has been done on a purpose that if you are charge successfully in one particular charging station let's say in Dharavi, and you move on to next location let's say Bandra. Now my recommendation engine will be able to find a very suitable environment on what you charge last time, in Bandra. Based on their preferences. What kind of facilities you like what kind of charging gun you had, what kind of charging speed you wanted, what kind of payments you wanted all this are part of the recommendation, so its inbuilt into it. It makes it more convenient to charge it. Other than that what it does it it allows you to add your vehicles.Like you may have more than, we are looking at the future where we dont want people to carry any ICE vehicle. So, he will have a 2 wheeler which is an EV, a couple of 4 wheelers which are EV and he will also have a let's say holiday vehicle which is an EV. So all these EV can be added as a part of 'My Vehicles'. Whenever you use an App, you use the app and go for charging, it will ask you which vehicle you want to charge today and based on that everything in the app changes. Like even the list that you see, the kind of charging that you would do and pricing. Also it allows you to buy certain subscription packages, be on the group. So a lot of things are there on the app.
Charging management software which is a newer thing lot of people in the Indian customer market may not understand. It is more suitable for fleet operators. More suitable for the people who want to set up their own charging stations. There are two categories that we are targeting with the charging management software. We have been running a pilot with both these categories of people and we have seen a great response in proving their efficiency and the manageability of the charging station. You need to have a power user management. you need to have different pricing policies. You need to have different group management. So, it allows you all this. It allows you to see lot of reports, like how much did I earn today. What is the graph over the time as a charging station owner. Now when we talk about the utility of charging management software for a fleet operator point of view. So, there are 3 things which this provides that he cannot do without the charging management software. Number one is it can give him a pattern on across all his drivers that what kind of charging patterns do they follow. Because for a healthy EV charging, charging patterns depends a lot on the way the driver is charging it. How much slow charging he is doing. The ratio of slow charging versus fast charging. and is he doing it only once in a day? Sorry once in a month of slow charging or doing it uniformly. So it will give you a probability score of battery life and assign a driving score to each individual driver with a recommendation. That as a fleet owner, using this software you can improve the battery life of a vehicle. That's a very important thing that this does.
Raphae :
Basically, the driver will use the app, and the administration staff then needs to use the charge management software that what you are saying?
Manish :
Yes, Exactly! Exactly.
This whole thing works out that it has been done from the management point of view. Supposing, the driver puts it on charge and goes off for lunch what happens then?
So, in this whole case, there is a group and public policies, which an the office admin can make a group policy that a particular day the charger guy cannot charge for more than half an hour. So in this case if the vehicle is plugged in after half an hour the number one thing that happens is the charger will be switched off so there is no wastage of electricity. And an alert goes out to the admin and to the driver that your vehicle is complete charged as per the quota you need to remove it. It also, if there is a vallet parking alert also goes to the valet driver so that he can remove the car and put in another. So that's the kind of control, the policies can be made now.
You just mentioned that your chargers don't require much connectivity or even a smartphone, tell us a little bit more how it goes about doing authentication in that case. Are there some mathematics-based algorithms used what are you doing over there?
Manish :
Yeah, so its a proprietary technology. It's a patent technology what we basically use, we use a lot of prime numbers and some very advanced level of mathematics to compress that entire packet to this encapsulation and on top of that we do encryption where we encapsulate the entire charging request into a very small mathematical number which will when decrypted and when encapsulated will tell you everything like for example it will tell you what time and date this charging request is for, number one. Number two, it will tell you how many Watts of charging power this request is for, Number three what is the duration of charging that you want this charging request to run for. Number four, for which charger point is this request is for. Number five, it can also tell you whether you are a part of a special group so that special group policies can be applied. All this we compress it using prime numbers and all that advanced mathematics and encapsulated in a very small packet and then encrypted so it becomes a 6 digit integer. That 6 digit integer is self-contained information that can be keyed now into keypad which is not connected to the internet. So this is the same technology which people use at the spaceship. Like your spaceship is not always connected. Like ISS is not always connected. A command takes half an hour to reach the Earth. so, it has to be an autonomous system that has to understand the command and run on its own. It runs like that. It does not require the internet to take a request. It requires internet only in case of, if it has to feedback a request that I am down. For that also we are using a very interesting thing combining a lot of request and then connecting. With now most of the smart cities are connected. Their energy database is connected. You can them and find out which areas the power has gone out. Raphae :
Right, you are understanding the local difficulties that there may not be network everywhere and not everyone may have access to 4G SIM, DataSIM or even a smart phone. So this takes into account and you are using high-tech tool to solve a problem in such a way that it suits the Indian requirement. That is really awesome. Manish.
Let's move on to the next questions. You told us that your team has worked extensively on software that accompanies OnePlug charging equipment. Do tell us a little bit about the features of the software, the app features and the various things that go into it.
Raphae :
That is really awesome. Manish.
Let's move on to the next questions. You told us that your team has worked extensively on software that accompanies OnePlug charging equipment. Do tell us a little bit about the features of the software, the app features and the various things that go into it.
Manish :
So when we talk about Software, there is two kinds of software that the team has built over time.
So one is a mobile App that is user-facing which goes for the user to book a charger. This app is.. if you have seen, the mobile app for charging has been there in the market for the last 7-8 years because it has started from the western world. The Charge Point brought this app, then there are so many western companies who bought this app. There is a significant difference in the way we have designed our app. We have not followed the suit which they have done it. It's a different interface. one of the interfaces which we differ from the western world is we provide what kind of facility does the charging station has. What we realize, in India, still most of the charging happens in a slow charging environment or in an environment where the user has to spend anywhere between half an hour to two hours to a location to charge their vehicle. based on what kind of vehicle he is carrying. So we thought it's a good idea if we can let the user know or let the user search the charging station which has certain facilities, like library area, like video game area, like free wifi, like you can add n-number of facilities to a charging station and user would be able to search it. Basic things still are available on our app like you can search what are the things which are available in the vicinity of my area. More advanced things like recommendation engine which has still not picked up in the western world, now its the first time, we have put in a recommendation engine into a charging station and now this has been done on a purpose that if you are charge successfully in one particular charging station let's say in Dharavi, and you move on to next location let's say Bandra. Now my recommendation engine will be able to find a very suitable environment on what you charge last time, in Bandra. Based on their preferences. What kind of facilities you like what kind of charging gun you had, what kind of charging speed you wanted, what kind of payments you wanted all this are part of the recommendation, so its inbuilt into it. It makes it more convenient to charge it. Other than that what it does it it allows you to add your vehicles.Like you may have more than, we are looking at the future where we dont want people to carry any ICE vehicle. So, he will have a 2 wheeler which is an EV, a couple of 4 wheelers which are EV and he will also have a let's say holiday vehicle which is an EV. So all these EV can be added as a part of 'My Vehicles'. Whenever you use an App, you use the app and go for charging, it will ask you which vehicle you want to charge today and based on that everything in the app changes. Like even the list that you see, the kind of charging that you would do and pricing. Also it allows you to buy certain subscription packages, be on the group. So a lot of things are there on the app.
Charging management software which is a newer thing lot of people in the Indian customer market may not understand. It is more suitable for fleet operators. More suitable for the people who want to set up their own charging stations. There are two categories that we are targeting with the charging management software. We have been running a pilot with both these categories of people and we have seen a great response in proving their efficiency and the manageability of the charging station. You need to have a power user management. you need to have different pricing policies. You need to have different group management. So, it allows you all this. It allows you to see lot of reports, like how much did I earn today. What is the graph over the time as a charging station owner. Now when we talk about the utility of charging management software for a fleet operator point of view. So, there are 3 things which this provides that he cannot do without the charging management software. Number one is it can give him a pattern on across all his drivers that what kind of charging patterns do they follow. Because for a healthy EV charging, charging patterns depends a lot on the way the driver is charging it. How much slow charging he is doing. The ratio of slow charging versus fast charging. and is he doing it only once in a day? Sorry once in a month of slow charging or doing it uniformly. So it will give you a probability score of battery life and assign a driving score to each individual driver with a recommendation. That as a fleet owner, using this software you can improve the battery life of a vehicle. That's a very important thing that this does.
Raphae :
Basically, the driver will use the app, and the administration staff then needs to use the charge management software that what you are saying?
Manish :
Yes, Exactly! Exactly.
This whole thing works out that it has been done from the management point of view. Supposing, the driver puts it on charge and goes off for lunch what happens then?
So, in this whole case, there is a group and public policies, which an the office admin can make a group policy that a particular day the charger guy cannot charge for more than half an hour. So in this case if the vehicle is plugged in after half an hour the number one thing that happens is the charger will be switched off so there is no wastage of electricity. And an alert goes out to the admin and to the driver that your vehicle is complete charged as per the quota you need to remove it. It also, if there is a vallet parking alert also goes to the valet driver so that he can remove the car and put in another. So that's the kind of control, the policies can be made now.
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Raphae :
OnePlug also has DC charging equipment. Your team has worked with RRT in Chennai tell us a little bit more about this.
Manish :
Yeah! So, Raphae, when it comes to DC charging equipment. what we have done, we are working with a known player who has already been in the market for a very long time. Taking all the electricals part of it, putting a logic on to it, putting the OTP part, putting the OCPP part and integrating it with our software, the charging management software, as well as the app and what we have brought out, is, we have brought 2 models. What we saw the gap in the market. One is a 5 KW of DC charger and another is a 10 KW of DC charger and out of them only 5 KW is deployed in a captive location and 10 KW will be done as soon as the lockout period is over. We have been running it. The reason we started running it for quite some time and been observing the performance and what kind of charging benefits it gets and those kind of things.
Raphae :
You have deployed 5 KW and 10 KW you yet have to deploy but isn't this a kind of low rate of charging, what is the reason for doing it that way was it to keep the cost low?
Manish :
Yeah, that was one of the factors but otherwise not "The" factor. We have seen it from our experience and have collected a lot of data and you know most of the chargers now have a Bharat Protocol which is a demand-based protocol. Let me spend a few minutes explaining what is a demand-based protocol.
So demand-based protocol is.. when a vehicle demands the power, it is not that the charger will supply the power. So even if I have a 100KW of DC charger, In Bharat protocol the vehicle demands the power. That, this is the power I demand.
Now, what are the parameters the vehicle demand power. why would vehicles demand lots of power than what it needs? It depends on a lot of parameters and one of the critical parameters of that is battery temperature. when the battery temperature goes high a charger has to drop in the demand current so that apparently it is actually asking the charger to supply lesser power because it cannot afford to charge at a very high current rate which will further increase in temperature. This is done to keeping in mind the safety of the vehicle. Not what is the consequences and why we went for the 5 KW. What we have seen from our observation, the user behaviour is a fleet operator which is a primary consumer, when it comes to DC charging is a driver has driven a car for let's say a 100 km or a 120 km and then it takes a pit stop. Now imagine the battery temperature when he takes the pit stop. The battery temperature is high.at that time most of the chargers supply power, the vehicles demand the power of a lesser ampere. That results in a power requirement of anywhere between, you will be surprised sometimes it starts charging at 3 KW even the 5 KW is enough then can go up to 7 - 8 KW. So 60% of the time in half an hour slot the vehicle charges at an average power of 5 KW. So we thought that if we can bring out if we can come up with a charger which is a 5 KW charger, it solves a very critical problem. One is the initial investment that the fleet operator has to put in and second is that it still meeting 60% of his requirement. For pitstop of half an hour, this is a sweet spot that we identified for 5 KW. Similarly, 10KW is a sweet spot for vehicles that are of higher capacity like the newer version of e-vehicles which comes to the market. So thats the point. The Mahindra eVeritos and most of the e2os the 5 KW is more than enough. It gives an approximately 50 kms + range. upto 60 kms range in half-hour which is a good amount for half an hour pit stop.
Raphae :
What are the connectors that are used on these chargers. Are they GB/T?
Manish :
Yeh they are GB/T based on the Bharat protocol. so this is connectors which are available in most of the cars which are there on the road as of now. So this is the current situation and we work for the market.
OnePlug also has DC charging equipment. Your team has worked with RRT in Chennai tell us a little bit more about this.
Manish :
Yeah! So, Raphae, when it comes to DC charging equipment. what we have done, we are working with a known player who has already been in the market for a very long time. Taking all the electricals part of it, putting a logic on to it, putting the OTP part, putting the OCPP part and integrating it with our software, the charging management software, as well as the app and what we have brought out, is, we have brought 2 models. What we saw the gap in the market. One is a 5 KW of DC charger and another is a 10 KW of DC charger and out of them only 5 KW is deployed in a captive location and 10 KW will be done as soon as the lockout period is over. We have been running it. The reason we started running it for quite some time and been observing the performance and what kind of charging benefits it gets and those kind of things.
Raphae :
You have deployed 5 KW and 10 KW you yet have to deploy but isn't this a kind of low rate of charging, what is the reason for doing it that way was it to keep the cost low?
Manish :
Yeah, that was one of the factors but otherwise not "The" factor. We have seen it from our experience and have collected a lot of data and you know most of the chargers now have a Bharat Protocol which is a demand-based protocol. Let me spend a few minutes explaining what is a demand-based protocol.
So demand-based protocol is.. when a vehicle demands the power, it is not that the charger will supply the power. So even if I have a 100KW of DC charger, In Bharat protocol the vehicle demands the power. That, this is the power I demand.
Now, what are the parameters the vehicle demand power. why would vehicles demand lots of power than what it needs? It depends on a lot of parameters and one of the critical parameters of that is battery temperature. when the battery temperature goes high a charger has to drop in the demand current so that apparently it is actually asking the charger to supply lesser power because it cannot afford to charge at a very high current rate which will further increase in temperature. This is done to keeping in mind the safety of the vehicle. Not what is the consequences and why we went for the 5 KW. What we have seen from our observation, the user behaviour is a fleet operator which is a primary consumer, when it comes to DC charging is a driver has driven a car for let's say a 100 km or a 120 km and then it takes a pit stop. Now imagine the battery temperature when he takes the pit stop. The battery temperature is high.at that time most of the chargers supply power, the vehicles demand the power of a lesser ampere. That results in a power requirement of anywhere between, you will be surprised sometimes it starts charging at 3 KW even the 5 KW is enough then can go up to 7 - 8 KW. So 60% of the time in half an hour slot the vehicle charges at an average power of 5 KW. So we thought that if we can bring out if we can come up with a charger which is a 5 KW charger, it solves a very critical problem. One is the initial investment that the fleet operator has to put in and second is that it still meeting 60% of his requirement. For pitstop of half an hour, this is a sweet spot that we identified for 5 KW. Similarly, 10KW is a sweet spot for vehicles that are of higher capacity like the newer version of e-vehicles which comes to the market. So thats the point. The Mahindra eVeritos and most of the e2os the 5 KW is more than enough. It gives an approximately 50 kms + range. upto 60 kms range in half-hour which is a good amount for half an hour pit stop.
Raphae :
What are the connectors that are used on these chargers. Are they GB/T?
Manish :
Yeh they are GB/T based on the Bharat protocol. so this is connectors which are available in most of the cars which are there on the road as of now. So this is the current situation and we work for the market.
Final Words
So, viewers, you have seen that all the hardware and all software that has been created by the OnePlug team and this is not a hypothetical or theoretical discussion.
This is something that they have on the road. They have actually started deplyoing these chargers. Charging equipment and software is actually production-ready.
Its been used by more than 130 electric vehicles every day.
Read Part 2 of the article where Mr Manish speaks about the two public charging stations created by OnePlug, located in Delhi. He also speaks about the legal challenges involved in getting permissions and also Mr Manish answers questions from the EV Community.
Get Involved
If you are interested in OnePlug hardware or want to become a local partner, fill in the form here
So, viewers, you have seen that all the hardware and all software that has been created by the OnePlug team and this is not a hypothetical or theoretical discussion.
This is something that they have on the road. They have actually started deplyoing these chargers. Charging equipment and software is actually production-ready.
Its been used by more than 130 electric vehicles every day.
Read Part 2 of the article where Mr Manish speaks about the two public charging stations created by OnePlug, located in Delhi. He also speaks about the legal challenges involved in getting permissions and also Mr Manish answers questions from the EV Community.
Get Involved
If you are interested in OnePlug hardware or want to become a local partner, fill in the form here