Most confusion on a first long EV drive is vocabulary rather than engineering. Three numbers decide almost everything — where your state of charge starts, the threshold at which you start hunting for a charger, and the reserve you refuse to spend. Everything else is detail on top.
How full the battery is, as a percentage. It is the EV equivalent of a fuel gauge, and it is the number every charging decision on a highway trip is built around.
In EV Grids: You set a start SOC before planning. Each stop card shows an estimated arrival SOC, calculated from your Wh/km along the driving route — it is not a reading from the car.
See also: Reserve SOC, Search threshold
The percentage you decide not to spend — the floor you want still in the battery when you arrive. It pays for a closed charger, a wrong turn, or a detour you did not plan.
In EV Grids: Default 20%. The planner tries to keep every leg above this level, and raises the urgency of finding a stop as you approach it. Raise it to 25–30% for ghats, monsoon, or unfamiliar sparse stretches.
See also: State of charge (SOC), Search threshold
The SOC level at which you want to start looking for a charger, rather than the level at which you are in trouble.
In EV Grids: Default 30%. When the estimated SOC walk would fall through this level, EV Grids searches for DC stops. Keep it above your reserve — the gap between the two is your planning margin.
See also: Reserve SOC, State of charge (SOC)
Watt-hours consumed per kilometre — how much energy the car actually uses. Lower is more efficient. It is the single most useful number for planning, and it changes with speed, climate use, terrain, and load.
In EV Grids: Vehicle presets carry a typical highway figure. Energy for a route is Wh/km multiplied by distance, so entering your own number from a real trip makes stop spacing far more accurate than any brochure range.
See also: kWh, Rated range
The certified range figure from a test cycle such as ARAI or WLTP. It is measured under controlled conditions that do not resemble a highway at 100 km/h with the air conditioning running.
In EV Grids: Presets store rated range as a planning input. A real-world highway margin is applied on top of it, and terrain or weather adjustment multiplies further. Treat rated range as a starting point, never a promise.
See also: Wh/km, Real-world range factor
A margin applied to rated range to get a usable highway figure, because certification cycles overstate what a fast highway leg delivers.
In EV Grids: EV Grids plans at roughly 85% of rated range by default. With adjust for conditions enabled, the terrain and weather factor multiplies on top of that. This is separate from the Wh/km energy calculation.
See also: Rated range, Wh/km
kW is power — the rate energy moves, like the width of a tap. kWh is energy — the amount delivered, like the water in the bucket. A 60 kW charger running for 30 minutes delivers at most about 30 kWh.
In EV Grids: Charger listings show kW, which is a station ceiling. Stop cards show energy added in kWh, which is what you pay for.
See also: Charging curve, Wh/km
The way charging speed falls as the battery fills. A pack might accept peak power up to roughly 50–60% and then taper considerably, which is why the last 20% often takes as long as the first 60%.
In EV Grids: This is why a higher-kW charger does not always mean a shorter stop, and why charging to 80% and moving on is usually faster overall than waiting for 100%.
See also: kW versus kWh, Charge-to target
How full you intend to charge at a stop. Higher targets buy range but spend disproportionate time in the slow part of the curve.
In EV Grids: Adjustable in the planner. Fewer-stops mode assumes a higher target, which only pays off when the charger is genuinely fast.
See also: Charging curve, Trip mode
A tariff estimate rather than a live quoted price. When a listing has no published rate, it may be inferred from the operator.
In EV Grids: Every rupee figure in EV Grids is a planning aid. Memberships, idle fees, taxes, and plaza walk-up rates vary. Confirm in the operator app before you plug in.
See also: Trip mode
Combined Charging System type 2 — the DC fast-charging standard used by essentially every recent highway-capable EV sold in India. The connector has the Type 2 shape on top with two large DC pins below.
In EV Grids: Vehicle presets carry connector types, and DC filtering uses them. If a listing offers only AC, it is excluded when you are planning highway stops.
The seven-pin AC connector used for slow and medium-speed charging — home wall boxes, hotel chargers, and mall parking. Useful overnight, not for a highway stop.
In EV Grids: Type 2 AC sites are filtered out of DC stop searches, but matter for overnight planning where you have hours rather than minutes.
See also: CCS2, Overnight charging
An older DC fast-charging standard, largely superseded by CCS2 in India. Some early Nissan models used it.
In EV Grids: Rare on new cars. If your vehicle needs it, check listings carefully rather than assuming a DC site will fit.
See also: CCS2
A primary is the recommended stop for a leg. A backup is an alternative near it, chosen in advance so a failure does not become an improvisation on the shoulder.
In EV Grids: Each stop is presented as a cluster. Selecting a backup at every stop is the single most useful habit on Indian highways, where a listed site may be queued, offline, or have the wrong working connector.
See also: Chain validation, Detour
Re-checking the rest of a trip after you change one stop, so an earlier choice cannot strand a later leg.
In EV Grids: Swapping in a cheaper but farther charger can break reachability further along. EV Grids re-validates later legs and can prompt a fix when that happens.
See also: Primary and backup charger, Reserve SOC
The extra distance required to reach a charger away from your driving route. Measured along the road, not as a straight line.
In EV Grids: Detour is the heaviest factor in charger ranking. A nearby moderate-power plaza usually beats a distant high-power site once you count the kilometres and time both ways.
See also: Primary and backup charger
A preference that changes how stops are ranked — balanced, fastest, fewer stops, or cheapest. It changes ranking, not physics.
In EV Grids: Fastest weights charging power more heavily. Cheapest weights indicative tariff. Fewer stops assumes higher charge-to targets. None of them reserve a connector for you.
See also: Charge-to target, Indicative pricing
Charging while you sleep, typically on AC at a hotel, so you start the next day full without spending highway time.
In EV Grids: Overnight mode biases ranking toward lodging-adjacent sites on multi-day routes. It does not book a room or guarantee a working charger in the car park — confirm with the property.
A named city-to-city driving route along a highway, treated as a planning unit — for example Hyderabad to Goa.
In EV Grids: Corridor pages carry distance, highway, charging strategy and seasonal notes, and open the planner with cities pre-filled.
See also: Detour
A confidence indicator built from listing signals — operational status, rating volume, and a busy report where one exists. It is a prior, not a live view of the hardware.
In EV Grids: Amber means thin evidence rather than broken. Green means the listing looks healthy. Neither is a substitute for a backup.
See also: Primary and backup charger, Star ratings
User ratings attached to the underlying map listing for a charging location. They mix charger experience with everything else about the site, including its food.
In EV Grids: These come from third-party map data, not from EV Grids reviews, and are used only as a weak reliability prior.
See also: Reliability badge
The planner-specific notes describe how EV Grids actually behaves. The full pipeline — discovery, connector filtering, the SOC walk, ranking weights, and chain validation — is documented in how EV Grids plans your route. For the shorter version, read how EV Grids works, then range and SOC and the charging guide. Data sourcing and its limits are on charger data and accuracy.
