Over 17,000 electric vehicle charging stations will be installed across India by IOCL and Bharat Petroleum.

Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's largest oil company, and Bharat Petroleum, a Fortune Global 500 company, are both spending big on electric vehicle charging, with plans to install over 17,000 stations in the next several years. While IOCL has stated that 10,000 charging stations for electric cars (EVs) will be installed in the next three years, BP has stated that charging stations will be installed at roughly 7,000 fuel pumps in the next few years.

The announcements come after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a bold vow on Monday to reduce emissions in the world's third-largest emitter to zero by 2070. With the majority of the 28 crore vehicles now on Indian roads and the majority of the 2.5 crore vehicles added each year running on petrol or diesel, the demand for fossil fuel will continue to rise.

EVs, or electric vehicles, make up a minuscule percentage of all vehicles on the road today. EVs account for roughly 1% of all new 2-wheelers sold, while the share in the four-wheeler category is only 0.2 percent. EVs account for 25% of new three-wheeler sales. Electric vehicles are expected to account for 30% of new two-wheelers and 35% of new three-wheelers by 2030. In 2030, electric vehicles will account for 15% of all four-wheelers sold.

IOC intends to install 50 KW EV charging stations every 25 kilometres and 100 KW heavy-duty chargers every 100 kilometres to create a network that will give customers easy access to charging their electric vehicles, according to IOCL. Charging stations will be installed at existing and new petrol stations across the country.

In the first year, IOC plans to install 231 EV charging stations in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Surat, and Pune, which are all high-priority cities. In the second year, another 375 stations would be built in these cities, followed by another 215 in the third year. Over the three-year period, 944 charging stations would be installed in other state capitals, but more over half of the 10,000 outlets planned would be installed on highways and in other cities.