Two identical chargers, bought at the same price and installed to the same standard, can produce completely different returns. The difference is almost always utilisation: the share of the day a charger is actually delivering energy to a vehicle.
What utilisation means
Utilisation is usually measured as the hours a charger spends charging divided by the hours in a day. A charger in use for 4.8 hours out of 24 has 20% utilisation. Some operators measure it as energy delivered compared with what the charger could deliver at full power. Whichever definition you use, use it consistently across all sites so they can be compared.
Why it matters so much
Most of a charger's costs are fixed. Equipment finance, site lease, maintenance contracts, software fees and the fixed part of the electricity bill arrive every month whether the charger is busy or idle. Revenue, on the other hand, grows with every session. Once a site covers its fixed costs, most of the margin on each extra kWh is profit.
Illustrative example: if a charger's fixed costs are ₹40,000 a month and each kWh sold earns a gross margin of ₹8 after energy costs, the charger needs 5,000 kWh a month to break even. That is about 167 kWh a day, or roughly 4 hours at an average of 40 kW, which is about 17% utilisation. Every hour of use above that adds profit.
The figures in this example are only for illustration. Your own break-even point depends on your costs, tariffs and pricing, but the shape of the calculation is the same for every site.
What drives utilisation
- Location: sites where drivers already stop, such as highways, malls and transport hubs, beat sites drivers must make a special trip to reach.
- Visibility: good signage, listings on EV apps and maps, and live availability information bring drivers in.
- Reliability: one failed session can send a driver to a competitor for good. Uptime and utilisation are closely linked.
- Right power for the dwell time: a 240 kW charger at a cinema car park sits idle; a 30 kW unit on a highway frustrates drivers.
- Anchor customers: fleet, taxi or bus operators who commit to using a site give it a steady base load.
- Roaming: letting drivers from other networks use your chargers widens your customer base.
Plan for the ramp-up
Utilisation is rarely high on day one. A new site typically grows as drivers discover it and as the local EV population rises. Build your business case on a realistic ramp-up rather than on a mature-site figure, and plan your cash flow for the early months.
Improving an existing site
If a site is underperforming, look at the data before adding chargers. Session logs show when the site is busy, which sessions fail and how long cars stay after charging. Often the answer is better visibility, a pricing change, an idle fee, fixing a reliability issue, or signing a fleet partner, not more hardware.
How PxT can help
PxT Energies helps operators choose locations, size chargers for real demand and monitor utilisation across every site. If your chargers are not earning what you expected, ask us for a site performance review.