Charging Ahead: How EVtron Is Building EV Chargers for Tamil Nadu
When Kathiresan and Sabarinath walked away from high-profile corporate careers, their colleagues thought they were taking a risk. Turns out, they were onto something. They teamed up with Mani and Manickam, who between them bring more than 25 years in banking and IT, and that's how the founding four came together, each with a completely different background: software systems, product engineering, industrial operations, and strategy and customer relations.
What brought them together was pretty simple. India's EV boom needed charging infrastructure that could actually scale, and Tamil Nadu needed something built for its own conditions rather than borrowed assumptions from somewhere else.
EVtron got started in 2020, out of Chennai with a decision to build the whole stack themselves, hardware, firmware, and software, all in-house. EVtron had already installed one of its first EV chargers on the Chennai to Bengaluru highway corridor before the company was formally incorporated as a Pvt. Ltd. in January 2024.
Building It the Hard Way — and the Right Way
From custom PCB design to firmware development and a cloud-based charging management system, the core technology behind EVtron chargers are proprietary and developed in India. Their AC chargers range from 3.3 kW to 22 kW, serving passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
What the Field Taught Them
Real-world deployment, however, taught them lessons no lab could. Voltage fluctuations in Tier II and Tier III regions, inconsistent grid quality, and multi-app fragmentation in the EV charging ecosystem were all challenges the team encountered on the ground, in villages, fleet yards, and highways. Their response was not to retreat but to innovate. Each challenge fed directly back into product improvement: better voltage handling, component-level health monitoring, and predictive maintenance — features currently under R&D, with several already demonstrated and validated at the laboratory level, and being scaled into their next-generation chargers.
Reimagining EV Charging Through Data and Automation
Among EVtron's most distinctive innovations is a GNSS-enabled EV charging system, the subject of a filed patent, that enables automated vehicle recognition and payment processing without manual intervention. Their longer-term vision goes further: geo-fencing intelligence that automatically initiates charging the moment a registered vehicle enters a zone, complemented by a provisionally patented Plug-and-Play AC EVSE with Bidirectional V2X Integration and ongoing R&D to enable vehicle identification through AC charging infrastructure. Together, these advances position EVtron not just as a hardware manufacturer, but as a data-driven mobility infrastructure company.
Milestones That Matter
The numbers tell a compelling story of early traction:
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₹84 Lakhs in grants, awards, and funding secured through programs such as Nidhi Prayas, the Innovation Voucher Program (IVP), Climate Pitch 2025 (Cummins Foundation), and others.
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50+ chargers deployed across corporate campuses, remote villages, and fleet yards across Tamil Nadu, including Sattur, Ottanchathiram, Kumbakonam, Edappadi, Arcot, and several other towns and cities
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1,500+ charging sessions completed, delivering over 15,000 kWh of clean energy and reducing 12+ tonnes of CO₂
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Revenue has grown more than eightfold year-on-year, with the current fiscal year already showing strong momentum in its first two months
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First international deployment — Sri Lanka, completed in early 2026
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Climate Pitch 2025 Winner, selected from 1,000+ applications across South Asia
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Selected among the Top 10 finalists in Season 6 of the NXP India Tech Startup Challenge from 238 participating startups
The Role of iTNT Hub in EVtron's Growth
As a DeepTech startup incubator and accelerator in Tamil Nadu, iTNT Hub has supported EVtron throughout its acceleration journey by providing the right ecosystem to help the team focus on innovation and growth through access to experienced mentors, hiring support, co-working spaces, and advanced laboratory facilities.
What's Next for EVtron
With 600+ installations targeted and a manufacturing facility in Chennai ramping up, EVtron is transitioning from field-proven startup to scalable infrastructure company. Their chargers are being upgraded to automotive-grade NXP microcontrollers, with solar integration and dynamic load balancing already validated.
A Small Team, A Long Runway
A compact team of 10 members bootstrapped and grant-backed, EVtron continues to build with quiet conviction, supported by iTNT Hub across talent acquisition, mentorship, co-working, and lab access.