These Indian highways have seen the fastest rise in EV charging stations

The number of public chargers along key routes soared 40-90% in 2025, according to data analytics platform ExpWithEVs shared with Mint.

“When tracking the spread of EV chargers across the country, we see that there are not many major gaps in the availability of chargers across the major highways," said Priyans Murarka, founder at ExpWithEVs. “There could be some stretches in parts of the country where the availability is scarce, but the presence of chargers has improved."

However, Murarka said, one of the concerns reported is “keeping the chargers online as users may find them inoperational when they need them on these stretches of roads".

The charging network is expanding as India’s EV sales crossed the 2 million milestone last year, accounting for 8% of total dispatches. Automakers such as Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd, and Hyundai Motor India Ltd have lined up an aggressive launch pipeline of battery-powered vehicles.

National Highway 48, which runs from Delhi to Chennai, has the highest number of public fast charging stations, growing 41% year-on-year to 652 in 2025, according to ExpWithEVs data.

Srinagar-Kanyakumari National Highway 44, the country's longest, saw a 70% increase in charging stations over the previous year, to 574.

National Highway 66, running from Panvel, Maharashtra to Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, ranked third at 240 public charging stations, rising 45% from the year prior. NH16 (Kolkata to Chennai) and NH65 (Pune to Machilipatnam) followed, with 92% and 46% growth, at 227 and 213 stations, respectively.

EV fast chargers allow users to replenish car batteries in 10 to 60 minutes, unlike several hours for slow chargers. The network of such public stations has grown as Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd and Mahindra work with charge point operators and aggregators such as ChargeZone and Statiq to deploy EV infrastructure across the country. Public sector companies Indian Oil Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp., and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. are also active in the sector.

Charging company executives point out that some specific routes on the national highways are depicting the best charger density and availability for their network of chargers.

The Delhi-Chandigarh corridor is the best example of the availability of chargers on its network, according to Akshit Bansal, founder and chief executive at Statiq. “Beyond Delhi-Chandigarh, we are seeing Delhi-Jaipur and Jaipur-Udaipur emerge as India’s EV tourism highways."

Bansal highway electrification is “no longer about isolated chargers but about corridors, realistic spacing, redundancy, and predictable availability that allow EVs to function like regular cars on highways".

Restaurants are also becoming destinations for users to power up their vehicles in 30 to 60 minutes on average.

“One wants to take a pit stop after driving around three to four hours. And in that pit stop, you may want to, if your charger is available at a restaurant on a highway, you may want to charge it," Kartikey Hariyani, founder and chief executive officer of ChargeZone, said.

ChargeZone’s network across the country sees the most activity happening in the southern, western and northern regions.

“We started with the south as a major offtake," Hariyani said. “In the West, Maharashtra is in our network. Maharashtra is one of the largest states on highways. In north, we are seeing a good pickup as well. But in terms of ranking, it's south, then west and north."

In 2025, India's total EV sales, including cars, scooters, trucks, buses and three-wheelers, reached 2.27 million. Electric car sales rose 77% year-on-year to 176,817 units, while battery-powered two-wheeler sales rose 11% to 1.27 million units.

Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki have taken the lead, targeting 100,000 charging points each by 2030. Mahindra is eyeing over 1,000 such points by the end of 2027.

“EVs will scale sustainably only when product launches and ecosystem development move in parallel," Shailesh Chandra, managing director and chief executive at Tata Motors Passenger Vehicle (TMPV), said in December.

Maruti Suzuki, which has still not launched the eVitara, its first EV in India, also reiterated that it is taking an ecosystem approach to first address mileage anxiety before launching its cars.

“By doing the campaigns which we are doing, bringing all the apps under one umbrella, giving the fast charger confidence to the customer, then showcasing that the product range is really good…," Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer-marketing and sales, said in an interview earlier. “It takes care of a lot of concerns."