Apar, KEI Showcase EV Charging Guns at ELECRAMA: India Dependent on Chinese Imports

16th Edition of ELECRAMA, which was held from 22nd to 26th February 2025, featured the participation of over 1,000 exhibitors. Apar Industries Ltd., a major conductors and cable manufacturer, as well as KEI Industries, another important cables manufacturer in India, showcased their EV charging solutions at the trade show.

This assumes importance considering that India still remains predominantly dependent on imports for EV charging infrastructure components.

Apar Showcases EV Charging Solutions at ELECRAMA 2025, Charging Gun in Approval Process

Apar Industries showcased its EV charging solutions at ELECRAMA 2025. These included EV charging cables and CCS2 DC charging gun for Electric Vehicle charging.
Apar’s EV charging cables are a recent product of the company, which are manufactured at the company’s Khatalwada facility in Gujarat. The company has also developed a CCS2 DC charging gun for Electric Vehicles in 16 A to 250 A range (this range covers requirements for 2,3 and 4-wheeler EVs). However, Apar’s EV charging gun is awaiting requisite approvals before it can be launched.

In a conversation with CableCommunity, Mr. Ravindra Bothra, Deputy General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Apar Industries, shared “India is a growing market, [we are] targeting OEMs and EV charging station manufacturers”. He also highlighted the need to educate customers in India, since EV sales are still mostly concentrated in urban centres. Therefore, as customer awareness about electric mobility increases, there will be growth of opportunities for domestic EV charging infrastructure component manufacturers.

KEI Displays its Charging Guns & Portable AC Charger for EVs

KEI Industries showcased its CCS2 DC charger at ELECRAMA 2025. This product was launched by the company in the previous edition of the trade show, and it comes in the 125A to 350A range with a rated voltage of 1,000 V DC. As per the company, this charger has a maximum contact resistance of 0.5 mili Ohm, which is ‘close to zero’. This low contact resistance assumes importance as this charging gun features ‘natural cooling’, which means that it uses ambient air to dissipate heat unlike liquid cooling. KEI also showcased its Type2 AC charging gun at the show which comes in 16A and 32A variants. This charger offers slower EV charging than the DC CCS2 charger.

Apart from this, KEI displayed prototype of its portable AC charger at the show, which is set to be launched soon. Representatives at KEI’s stall did not share much information about this soon-to-be launched charger, but mentioned that this design targets to make on-the-go EV charging easier, as it can be conveniently plugged into AC sockets even at roadside establishments. This variant however compromises on charging speed, with about 7-8 hours of charge time [approximately] required to fully charge an EV.

“Few Indian Manufacturers for EV Charging Guns” – Apar Representative

While conversing with CableCommunity, Apar’s Mr. Bothra shared that as of now, EV charging guns are mostly imported from China, and only a few Indian companies are capable of manufacturing them locally.

China’s Monopoly over EV Charging Components Production

Chinese EV charging guns are available at cheap prices given the scale at which they are manufactured. To get some perspective, China has a network of 3.2 million EV charging points [as of July 2024], out of which 1.4 million are AC charging points, whereas 1.8 million are DC charging points. These figures are higher than the total of EV charging points in Europe and US combined, which is about 1.08 million (AC and DC taken together). Since China is already the largest manufacturer of EV charging infrastructure globally, including charging guns, the scale of China’s production can be imagined.

Fertile Opportunity for Indian Companies to Enter EV Charging Infra. Component Production

Contrastingly, as of now, India has only 1 public EV charging point per 135 EVs. As per the report titled ‘Charging Ahead II’ by GameChanger Law Advisors and Speciale Invest, India requires about 3.9 million EV charging points by 2030 to cater to the country’s growing EV penetration. With China currently having monopoly over global production of EV charging infrastructure components, it presents a fertile opportunity for Indian EV charging infra component manufacturers to ramp-up production. Considering this, Apar and KEI’s venture into manufacturing EV charging guns assumes great significance.