Energy In Motion and HPCL will build swap-and-charge hubs for electric heavy trucks on the Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Jaipur and Chennai-Bangalore corridors over 18-24 months.
Key points
- Swap Hubs Planned Across Three Major Freight Corridors
- How The Partnership Is Structured
- What EIM Has Already Built
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions on Commercial Vehicles
Energy In Motion Limited (EIM) has signed an agreement with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) to set up and operate fast-charging and battery-swapping infrastructure for heavy commercial vehicles at select HPCL retail outlets across India. HPCL runs over 25,000 retail outlets nationwide, including several on major highways and expressways — exactly the kind of locations a long-haul electric truck fleet needs to actually work.
Swap Hubs Planned Across Three Major Freight Corridors
Table Of Contents
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1. Swap Hubs Planned Across Three Major Freight Corridors |
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2. How The Partnership Is Structured |
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3. What EIM Has Already Built |
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4. Conclusion |
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Under the agreement, EIM will roll out charging and battery-swapping infrastructure at HPCL outlets in phases, with the first swap-and-charge hubs planned on three of India's busiest freight routes — Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Jaipur and Chennai-Bangalore — over the next 18 to 24 months, expanding further after that. The stations will serve electric commercial vehicles and will be integrated with EIM's technology platform for real-time availability, digital payments and remote monitoring, so a driver can check station status before pulling in rather than gambling on availability.
How The Partnership Is Structured
The division of responsibilities is fairly clean — EIM owns and manages the battery inventory and swap-and-charge hardware, while HPCL provides the physical space, utilities and common amenities at its outlets. That's a sensible split: HPCL already has the real estate and footfall along highways, and EIM brings the battery and charging expertise, rather than either company trying to build the other's half from scratch.
Battery swapping, offered alongside regular charging, lets drivers of compatible commercial vehicles exchange a depleted battery for a fully charged one in about seven minutes — a fraction of the time a full charge would otherwise take, and the kind of turnaround that actually matters when a truck's earning potential depends on staying on the move.
Narendra Murkumbi, Managing Director of EIM, said charging infrastructure succeeds or fails on reliability, and that placing stations at sites where drivers already stop — with power, space, amenities, safety systems and staff on duty — was the logic behind partnering with HPCL rather than building standalone sites from the ground up.
What EIM Has Already Built
This deal builds on infrastructure EIM already has running. The company has commissioned six heavy-duty swap stations across the Delhi-NCR region and the JNPA port area, with a combined daily capacity of 840 battery swaps, and is targeting 40 operational heavy commercial vehicle swap-cum-charging stations by the end of March 2027.
On the vehicle side, EIM launched its first electric heavy vehicle, the Ashwa 55-tonne e-tractor, on August 1, 2025 — a battery-swappable heavy tractor built for exactly the kind of infrastructure it's now scaling with HPCL. It's part of a broader shift covered in this guide to India's top electric trucks, where heavier-duty electric platforms are increasingly entering segments long dominated by diesel.
Conclusion
Charging infrastructure has long been the quiet bottleneck holding back electric adoption in heavy trucking, more so than the vehicles themselves. By anchoring swap-and-charge hubs to HPCL's existing highway network rather than building new real estate from scratch, EIM is taking a faster, more capital-efficient route to solving that problem. Whether it actually shifts fleet buying decisions will depend on how quickly these three corridors go live — but the groundwork, at least, is now in place.
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Frequently Asked Questions on Commercial Vehicles
Q1. Which routes will get EIM and HPCL's swap-and-charge hubs first?
Ans. The first hubs are planned on the Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Jaipur and Chennai-Bangalore freight corridors, rolling out over the next 18 to 24 months.
Q2. How long does a battery swap take at these stations?
Ans. Battery swapping allows drivers to exchange a depleted battery for a fully charged one in about seven minutes.
Q3. What is the Ashwa e-tractor?
Ans. The Ashwa is Energy In Motion's first electric heavy vehicle, a battery-swappable 55-tonne e-tractor launched in August 2025.
Q4. How many swap-cum-charging stations does EIM plan to have by 2027?
Ans. EIM is targeting 40 operational heavy commercial vehicle swap-cum-charging stations by the end of March 2027.