In an exciting interview with EMobility+ magazine, Meenal Malviya – Head of Design, Quench Chargers spoke about the current state of EV chargers in India, and how the Quench chargers are changing the dynamics of the Indian EV charging scenario. She also highlighted some design aspects of the Quench chargers that are worth noting.
What do you have to say about the current state of EV chargers in India?
As many sectors of this market are evolving – AC chargers, DC chargers, government tenders, and the growing Charge Point Operator market – the answer to that question may need to be nuanced with a sub-question. It is safe to say that all of these industries are expanding rapidly. AC chargers serve the destination, office, and home charging markets, and will soon be in the millions in India. DC fast chargers are typically targeted at the fleet and long distance drive markets, and this segment will grow over time as cities electrify public transportation and more options for buyers of electric cars for long-distance driving become available. However, another serious issue that has emerged is that locations, where chargers are put, are not performing as effectively or have not yet been functional. As a result, there is a greater demand for EV chargers that are dependable and keep their promises to end consumers.
How are Quench chargers changing the dynamics of the India EV charging scenario?
When we first set out to make fast chargers in India we tried to license overseas technology from Europe and experienced severe reticence to license to an Indian company. Today we consider that these European companies did us a big favor as we went ahead and instead designed Indias’s first truly Atma nirbhar fast charger. Our analysis demonstrated that the growth of the electric mobility sector in India is being hampered by not just the lack of charging infrastructure – but the fact that many of the chargers installed often do not work. Our focus has been to build a line of products that are relentlessly reliable, offering our customers a guarantee to bring chargers back in service within 24 hours should they experience any service issues. Our present line of fast chargers are 60KW and 120KW, both ARAI approved. This year we will also launch our 30KW single gun variant and a 180KW hyper charger product line.
Very early in the life of Quench Chargers, we were clear that we will never be a Charge Point Operator and that our “one thing” is toprovide relentlessly reliable chargers to charge point operators who care for quality, resilience, and charger availability. Our role is to facilitate the growth of electric mobility service providers and charge point operators.
Could you highlight some design aspects of Quench chargers?
The Quench is designed on the philosophy of what we call the “4 Fries”
1.the charger should not fry the car
2. the car should not fry the charger
3. neither the car nor the charger should end up frying the user/human and finally
4. the charger should not fry the grid.
When the design of power electronics equipment is inherently negligent or risky, electricity can cause harm. Adequate steps are taken with quench to ensure the safety of humans, EVs, and the EV chargers by protecting against earth leakage, overload and short circuit protection, input under and over-voltage protection, insulation monitoring, GND fault, over-temperature, smoke alarms, and so on.
What have been some key milestones achieved by your company with your specialized chargers?
We have built India’s first truly Atma nirbhar hyper chargers… we wanted to show the world that India has arrived on the EV charging scene and are proud to have exported our first units as well. Quench was also privileged to be one of the few products to be featured in the India pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020.
What is Quench Chargers aiming for in the next couple of years?
Quench aims to be a trusted reliable partner for CPOs globally in markets that demand relentlessly reliable hyper chargers. We have a long tail of technological development that we are investing in, including not just higher capacity hyper charging technology but also technology that addresses the main pain areas for EV charging – i.e. time it takes to charge.
