Taiwan-headquartered Delta Electronics is farming out more global responsibilities to its Indian subsidiary, a clear acknowledgment of the competencies available in this part of the world.
“We have a couple of global projects which have been delegated to the Indian R&D team. It is too early right now to disclose more details at this point in time but there is a clear roadmap for Southeast Asia and Australia where studies are on,” said Manjula Girish, Business Head, EV Charging & Photovoltaic Inverter Division, Delta Electronics India.
She told ETAuto that there was a complete ecosystem in place which gave India a clear edge in the overall Delta Electronics world map. Consequently, it has been assigned the job of developing and manufacturing products for use overseas. “Probably a little later down the line, I will be happy to share the plan,” she added.
All the R&D work will happen out of Delta Electronics’ Bengaluru facility where the manpower is a little over 300 people and will be “scaled up aggressively” in the next couple of years to perhaps closer to 1,000.
Projects from the West
India is also seeing more work with its R&D teams supporting a couple of European projects. There was also a special project for the US which was delegated to India. “The power of technicalities, the power of qualitative resources, the kind of engineering talent India possesses across the globe is something that is acknowledged within Delta as well,” said Girish.
With such a solid cerebral foundation in place, it may well be a matter of time before a centre of excellence is replicated in India on the lines of what is present in Taiwan. “I will not be surprised (if this were to happen),” she said.
Incidentally, Girish was part of a recent workshop at the Delta headquarters in Taiwan where there was a lot of brainstorming among the R&D and engineering people on what was happening worldwide in terms of regulatory requirements, voltage parameters, applications and so on.
“With Delta’s focus on innovation, we all understood that this is a constantly changing industry where what worked yesterday will not click in a subsequent quarter. So having a futuristic product roadmap is always good,” explained Girish.
Different standards
Yet, the challenge arises from the fact that markets across the world have different goalposts and standards especially when it concerns electric vehicles that are an important part of Delta’s business of proving charging solutions. Some countries are also looking at other clean fuel options while the overwhelming presence of the Chinese in EVs has led to advanced nations imposing stiff entry barriers in the form of tariffs.
As Girish said, there are different protocols and standards to reckon with right from Japan and China to Europe and India. Respective local teams need to examine the deviations and specification criteria while understanding regulatory requirements, safety norms etc. The overarching goal is to minimise needless or wasteful efforts and avoid duplication.
According to her, standardisation is the need of the hour in the EV charging space and “would really help” in a big way. Once the benchmarking is set on safety and hardware requirements, further innovation and value engineering can be “easily accepted and adapted” by end-users.
“Standardisation is an acceptable and preferred norm which we really need to have in this segment. People would, otherwise, get confused in different charging configurations. I think further building or innovating solutions and products will become simpler with standardisation,” said Girish.
Constant learning
Likewise, any discussion on sustainable and long lasting solutions would need to be preceded by organisations thinking ahead first. For entities like Delta Electronics which have a global presence, there is some learning always happening from local markets. The centre of excellence at Taiwan constantly carries out market analysis and where there is a special project involved, the regional team is roped in to help out.
Interestingly, there is some work happening on hybrids and hydrogen too. However, these are early days and nothing is at a project level yet where it an be shared and discussed. The fact that this is happening by itself is a reflection of global realities where electric may not be the sole answer for the short to midterm.
Back home in India, Delta Electronics is in the process of developing g two- and three-wheeler charging solutions. Its ally, Trinity CleanTech based in Secunderabad, has the complete portfolio of ThunderPlus charging solutions starting from 3.3 kilowatt and going on to 7.4 kW, 8 kW, 12 kW etc. Delta, in turn, will provide high efficiency rectifier modules which will be made at its Krishnagiri facility in Tamil Nadu and used in the ThunderPlus range.
Innovative solutions
“It will be a good leverage to complement each other with whatever we have along with the design development they have done. So by integrating it, we can cater to two-and three-wheelers,” said Girish. The market size is huge and the fastest pace of electric adoption is happening in these product segments. Delta is keen on getting “very strong and competitive” here which could then see some innovative solutions happening over the next couple of years.
The company works closely with charge point operators where DC (direct current) portfolios starting from 25 kW, 30 kW, 120 kW and going on to 240 kW. One fast DC charging request which keeps “popping up” is 360 kW. This is now part of a feasibility study which will look at what can be incorporated, what is the modality, whether it can be fully dynamic and so on.
Clearly, 360 kW is something which Delta will be “aggressively focusing on” in 2025 for both the fleet and bus segments. The dispensing gun product portfolio is also being studied for the DC product portfolio. As for AC (alternating current), two and three-wheelers will be part of the study. Work is also underway on portable chargers for cars where some models will go with 3.3 kW and others with 7.4 kW. This is part of a feasibility study specific to Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra based on their own needs. The first quarter of 2025 should hopefully have samples ready for field testing.
Home charging
“We see the four-wheeler segment in two ways: one is home charging where I am an individual with an electric car and my charging needs will be done at home. If I am a person who comes into the office and knows the range needed, I will charge the vehicle at home only. So my need would completely revolve around home charging,” explained Girish.
Beyond this are four-wheelers in fleet operations along with corporates replacing their cars with an EV fleet. “We have two segments: one that relies on commercial charging and the other on home charging. Four-wheelers constitute the only segment in terms of home charging as well as captive charging,” she said.
Girish admitted that challenges were inevitable in this era of mobility disruption where electric is the main theme. “Challenges will be there in terms of the market, customer, product, ecosystem, government regulations etc. The more you take up, the more challenges you will face. So one should be ready to handle more so long as the ability to solve problems is also in place,” she signed off.
