Thiru. Shivaraja Ramanathan, CEO- Tamil Nadu Start-up and Innovation Mission launched the Mobile Application “ChargePool” in Chennai for peer-to-peer (P2P) pooling of electric vehicle charging stations
‘ChargePool’ Mobile Application along with Vikash Sharda, co-founder Lono Mobility, Hitesh
Hiran co-founder Lono Mobility, Mr. M Parvez Alam, CEO & Director of Crescent Innovation
and Incubation Council and other government officials in the event.
Thiru. Shivaraja Ramanathan, CEO- Tamil Nadu Start-up and Innovation Mission, today launched the Mobile Application “ChargePool” in Chennai for peer-to-peer (P2P) pooling of electric vehicle charging stations. ChargePool is owned by Chennai-based start-up Lono Mobility Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The company was co-founded in 2021 by Vikash Sharda, Hitesh Hiran, and Naveenkumar Alle. The company is incubated in Crescent Innovation and Incubation Council (CIIC) in Chennai.
Electric mobility is the prime focus area of the Government, however, the adoption of EVs is also dependent on the availability of a network of charging stations. With India registering more than 5 lakh EVs in the past 2-3 years, we have approx. similar no of charging stations in use for home / personal and captive use purposes. Over 95% of chargers are estimated to be under the home and captive use category by the year 2030. Enabling access to these charging stations through ChargePool platform can solve the problem of charging stations availability and fuel the growth of EVs adoption in the country.
Thiru. Shivaraja Ramanathan, CEO- Tamil Nadu Start-up and Innovation Mission, said, “we are very happy that Lono Mobility has been incorporated in Tamil Nadu and will provide services in clean mobility, which is an emerging industry. We believe the product will help in the faster adoption of electric vehicles in Tamil Nadu and in India. We are pleased to state that Govt. of Tamil Nadu will provide its support to the company as it has the potential to generate more employment in the state.”
Vikash Sharda, co-founder, Lono Mobility said, “our main objective is to enable the pool of EV chargers for optimizing their utilization as this will help unlock the huge potential of the EV market and fuel its growth.”
Hitesh Hiran, co-founder, Lono Mobility said, “we are in the process of adding more features which will not only provide hassle-free charging of EV but also simplify the EV life journey for its owner.”
Mr. M Parvez Alam, CEO & Director of Crescent Innovation and Incubation Council added that India’s EV industry is still at a nascent stage which is expected to reach USD 17.01 billion by 2026, hence it has huge potential for growth, with people moving towards renewable energy. Tamil Nadu is moving at a commendable pace in the EV space, preceded by Karnataka.
How does ChargePool P2P feature work?
ChargePool is an end-user platform where one can list the charging stations as well as an EV user can search compatible EV chargers and book slots for charging sessions.
Under P2P pooling of charging stations, any EV user can add a home / captive charger and provide access to fellow EV user/driver as per its convenience. An EV user who wishes to avail of charging session sends a request to the selected home charger owner, who can review and approve the request using the ChargePool application. Both users can interact through Chat as well as Contact / Call feature using ChargePool application.
ChargePool uses Google Maps API enabling users to estimate distance and time to reach an EV charging station. Further, the user can click on the “Direction” button which redirects it to Google Map navigation to reach the concerned charging station from its current location.
One of the unique features of ChargePool is to enable EV users to view charging stations and identify stations that are compatible with its EV.
ChargePool is a charging technology-agnostic platform and has its development roadmap clearly laid out. It is working towards enabling smooth journey planning for EVs by providing real-time integration of charging networks to enable P2P roaming free access across networks. The team is currently in discussion with both EV manufacturers and EV Charging Networks to enable the ecosystem towards this end.
ChargePool platform has listed over 200 public charging stations and is aiming to pool more than 10,000 home chargers and over 1000 public charging stations over the next 1 year. The free app is available currently on android. The company is working on the next phases of platform development and the app will be made available for iOS soon.
