India’s charging infrastructure conversation has traditionally revolved around how many public chargers are being installed. Gulf Oil Lubricants India is making a different bet: that the next constraint will increasingly be the country’s ability to manufacture enough high-power charging equipment for electric buses, trucks and commercial fleets.
The company plans to invest around ₹50 crore in expanding the Ahmedabad manufacturing operations of Tirex Transmission, the EV charger manufacturer in which Gulf Oil owns a controlling stake. The expansion is expected to increase annual manufacturing capacity from roughly 1,500–1,800 chargers today to around 3,000 DC fast chargers, creating significantly more headroom as demand from electric buses and commercial EVs grows.
The timing is important. India sold 5,356 electric buses in FY26, representing year-on-year growth of around 37%. While an electric passenger car can often rely on overnight or destination charging, a commercial bus operates under a very different economic model. Long charging downtime directly reduces utilisation, which makes higher-power DC charging increasingly important as fleet electrification scales.
Tirex Is Already a Significant Player in DC Fast Charging
Gulf Oil entered the charging equipment business through Tirex Transmission, investing ₹103 crore in FY24 to acquire a 51% controlling stake. A further investment of approximately ₹38 crore in FY26 increased Gulf Oil’s holding to 65.18%. The latest ₹50 crore plan therefore represents another layer of capital being put behind a business Gulf Oil increasingly appears to view as part of its long-term transition beyond lubricants.
According to Gulf Oil Managing Director and CEO Ravi Chawla, Tirex currently accounts for roughly 40% of India’s DC fast-charger market. Tirex’s revenue has also increased from around ₹79 crore in FY25 to more than ₹100 crore in FY26, giving Gulf Oil a commercial base from which to justify further manufacturing expansion.
The company estimates that India’s EV charger market could represent approximately ₹4,000 crore of opportunity over the next four years, split roughly equally between AC and DC charging equipment. Tirex is targeting ₹300–400 crore in sales over that period, while Gulf Oil aims for an overall 10% share of the charging equipment opportunity.
The Bigger Opportunity May Sit Above 120 kW
The most interesting data point is not the total number of chargers in India, but their power distribution.
India currently has 67,657 public EV chargers, according to figures cited from BHEL’s charging infrastructure dashboard. Yet only 534 chargers, or around 0.7% of the network, fall within the 121–240 kW range, while just nine chargers are rated above 240 kW.
That imbalance matters because buses and trucks require a very different charging architecture from electric scooters and passenger cars. Commercial vehicles operate for revenue, often have much larger batteries and cannot afford lengthy dwell times. As e-bus and e-truck deployment rises, the charging market may therefore shift from a simple race to install more connectors toward a more capital-intensive race to deliver higher power, better uptime and greater energy throughput per site.
This is where Tirex’s expansion becomes strategically relevant. Increasing DC charger manufacturing capacity ahead of large-scale commercial vehicle electrification gives Gulf Oil exposure to a part of the charging market where hardware values, power ratings and infrastructure requirements are substantially higher.
Localisation Is Still an Unfinished Job
The capacity expansion also exposes one of the remaining weaknesses in India’s EV charger supply chain. Tirex currently estimates domestic value addition at around 55%, with Gulf Oil targeting approximately 70% localisation over time. Some adapters and power-electronics components are still sourced from China because large-scale Chinese manufacturing keeps those components cost competitive.
This makes manufacturing scale important for reasons beyond unit output. As volumes increase, domestic production of power electronics, modules and related charging components becomes more commercially viable. Gulf Oil has also indicated that it wants to eventually export India-made Tirex chargers, subject to the required international certifications.
The Charging Market Is Starting to Follow the Vehicle Mix
Gulf Oil’s ₹50 crore expansion should therefore be viewed as more than a manufacturing-capacity announcement. It is a signal about where the company believes demand is heading.
India’s first charging wave was shaped largely by electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and passenger cars. The next phase could increasingly be influenced by electric buses, trucks and high-utilisation fleets, where charging hardware has to deliver significantly more power and operate with far less downtime.
Government policy is also beginning to move in that direction. The Ministry of Heavy Industries is working on a financing-support framework for private-sector electric buses and trucks, with earlier discussions considering support for as many as 50,000 e-buses and 50,000 e-trucks over five years. If even a portion of that fleet materialises, charging requirements will grow far beyond today’s network architecture.
For Tirex, the real opportunity may therefore not be simply making 3,000 chargers instead of 1,800. It is being positioned for an Indian charging market where kilowatts delivered, uptime and commercial fleet utilisation begin to matter more than the headline number of charging points installed.
