EV Infra More Of A Challenge For Mass-Market EVs Than Luxury EVs: Mercedes-Benz India MD & CEO

Mercedes-Benz India’s managing director and CEO, Santosh Iyer, said India’s electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure is still a challenge, but it’s mostly for mass-market EV owners. However, he believes it will evolve. Furthermore, Iyer also said that Mercedes-Benz’s EV sales have grown more compared to the EV industry as a whole. 

Iyer said the charging infrastructure’s woes won’t really affect EV users with a long range, citing the example of his brand’s EVs, which have a long range. Iyer said, “In fact, our statistics say that 75 per cent of our customers charge at either home or office. They’re not even using public chargers.” 

These customers do end up using public chargers when they have to take a trip outside the city, but with a little planning, it’s not an impossible task. But these customers do face issues when some of the public chargers are not high-capacity chargers, thereby increasing the charging time for big batteries, and then there’s also uncertainty about these public chargers’ functioning.  

Iyer said, “mass-market maybe, where the range is a bit lower, maybe this is an impediment for growth. But I think this will all evolve.” Iyer also believes that EV OEMs and infrastructure developers need not wait for each other; in fact, both the sides will grow together to make EV charging and adoption more feasible. 

Despite Mercedes-Benz’s sales declining between January and May 2025, its EVs saw phenomenal growth during the same period. And while the EVs in the luxury car market grew by 66 per cent, Mercedes-Benz’s EV sales grew by 73 per cent. Iyer said, “We have grown more than the market growth on EVs. We have only introduced top-end cars like the G electric, EQS 580 and the Maybach EQS Night Series, so this is what’s contributing to our growth.”

The penetration of EVs in the luxury car market has gone up to 11 per cent, and Iyer said, “This takes away all the chatter that are people really ready to shift to EVs.” Iyer also said the future is uncertain but Mercedes-Benz is “fully committed” to bringing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles as well as EVs to India, and “we will continue to offer all the product offerings to the customer.”