Echor Hotels is a boutique hotel chain with over 15 properties across Himachal Pradesh and beyond — in destinations like Manali, Kasol, Shimla, Dharamshala, Spiti, and Jibhi. Their properties are positioned in the kind of places people drive to: scenic, often remote, and connected by some of India's most popular road trip routes. When guests started asking about EV charging — specifically guests driving up from Chandigarh, Delhi, and the Punjab plains — the demand was hard to ignore.
This case study covers how Echor Hotels worked with ZEVpoint to install 22kW AC chargers at their Kasol and Manali properties, set up paid charging controlled entirely by the hotel, and dealt with a challenge unique to hill stations: unreliable internet connectivity and its impact on cloud-connected chargers.
Where Did the Demand Come From?
The Chandigarh to Manali drive is roughly 300 km — one of India's most popular leisure routes, especially between March and November. Families, couples, and groups drive up for weekend getaways or week-long stays, stopping at properties in Kullu, Kasol, and Manali along the way. It's a road trip route, not a flight-and-taxi destination. People arrive in their own cars.
As EV adoption has grown — particularly among the urban demographic that frequents boutique hill station properties — Echor's front desk and reservation teams started receiving a recurring question: "Do you have an EV charger?" For some guests, the answer determined whether they booked. An EV owner planning a Chandigarh-to-Manali road trip needs to know they can charge overnight at the hotel, because public charging infrastructure in the hills is still sparse and unreliable.
This wasn't a sustainability branding exercise. It was a practical booking decision. Guests with EVs were choosing hotels that could charge their car overnight, and passing on those that couldn't. For a boutique chain competing on experience and convenience, that was a direct revenue question.
Why 22kW AC Chargers?
The charger choice was straightforward once you understand the use case. Hotel guests arrive in the evening, park their car, and leave the next morning — or stay multiple nights. They're not in a hurry. A 22kW AC charger can deliver up to 22kW, though the actual charging speed depends on the car's onboard charger — a Tata Nexon EV accepts about 3.3kW AC, an MG ZS EV accepts 7.4kW, and newer premium EVs accept 11kW or more. Even at the lower end, a Nexon plugged in for 10–12 hours overnight gets a full charge. For a guest who's driven 300 km from Chandigarh and needs to top up, overnight AC charging is more than sufficient regardless of what EV they drive.
DC fast chargers — the 30kW to 60kW units you see at highway stops — would have been overkill. They cost significantly more (₹3 lakh and upward per unit versus ₹30,000–50,000 for a 22kW AC charger), require substantially more electrical capacity, and the speed advantage is irrelevant when the car is sitting parked for 10–14 hours. Hotels aren't highway rest stops where drivers need 80% charge in 40 minutes. The guest's car charges while they sleep, eat, or explore — the hotel's parking lot is the charger's natural environment.
22kW also future-proofs the setup. As newer EV models come with higher onboard charger capacities — 11kW and 22kW AC are becoming standard in mid-range and premium cars — the charger can deliver full-speed AC charging to these vehicles without needing a hardware upgrade.
How Does Payment Work?
Unlike the Nvidia case study where charging was a free employee benefit, Echor's setup is a paid service. The hotel charges guests for EV charging — it's an additional revenue stream, not a cost centre. Guests pay for the electricity they use, typically at a per-kWh rate set by the hotel.
This is managed through ZEVpoint Connect, the cloud-based charger management system (CMS). The hotel's operations team has full control over pricing. They set the per-kWh tariff, can adjust rates seasonally if needed, and can see exactly how much revenue EV charging generates each month. The CMS dashboard shows every session — which charger, when it started, how long it ran, how many kWh were delivered, and the revenue collected.
For the guest, the experience is clean. They plug in, the session is tracked, and the charging cost is either settled directly or added to their hotel bill. The hotel doesn't need to manually monitor the charger or calculate bills — the CMS handles session tracking and billing automatically.
This model also means the hotel can run promotions when they want to. During off-peak season, they could offer discounted or complimentary charging as a booking incentive. During peak tourist season, it runs as a standard paid amenity. ZEVpoint Connect gives them the flexibility to adjust without touching the charger hardware.
The Connectivity Challenge: OCPP Fallback in the Hills
This is where the Echor installation differs from a typical urban setup, and it's worth understanding because any hotel or business in a hilly or remote area will face the same issue.
Smart EV chargers communicate with the CMS through OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) — an industry-standard communication layer that runs over the internet. The charger reports session data to the cloud, receives pricing instructions, and can be remotely monitored and configured. This works seamlessly in cities where internet connectivity is stable and always-on.
In Kasol and Manali, internet connectivity is not always stable. Mountain terrain, weather disruptions, and limited telecom infrastructure mean that broadband and mobile data connections can drop — sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. If a charger depends entirely on a live cloud connection to start a session, a connectivity drop means the charger becomes a brick. A guest arrives at 9 PM after a long drive, wants to plug in, and the charger won't start because it can't reach the server. That's a terrible guest experience.
ZEVpoint provided a fallback mechanism so that the chargers continue to work even when internet connectivity is disrupted. The specifics of how the fallback operates are part of ZEVpoint's implementation, but the outcome for the hotel is simple: guests can charge their vehicles regardless of whether the internet is up or down. No charging session is disrupted because of a connectivity drop.
This was a key requirement for Echor, and one that any hotel or business in a hilly or remote area should ask about when evaluating charger providers. In a location like Kasol, connectivity drops aren't edge cases — they're expected operating conditions. A charger that becomes unusable when the internet goes down creates a guest service failure, which is exactly what the fallback mechanism prevents.
What Does the Hotel Control Through the CMS?
One of Echor's requirements was full operational control. They didn't want a charger that was a black box managed by someone else. They wanted to see what was happening, adjust settings, and treat EV charging as they would any other hotel amenity — something they manage in-house.
Through ZEVpoint Connect, the hotel team can see real-time charger status (available, occupied, charging, fault), view all charging sessions with start time, end time, energy delivered, and revenue, set and adjust per-kWh pricing without needing a technician, monitor charger health and get alerts for faults or offline status, and pull reports for monthly revenue tracking and utilisation analysis.
This matters because hotel operations teams are not EV specialists. They need a simple dashboard that tells them "charger is working, here's how much money it made this month, here's which guests used it." ZEVpoint Connect provides that without requiring technical expertise. If something goes wrong — a charger shows a fault, or a session doesn't end properly — the hotel can see it in the dashboard and contact ZEVpoint support with specific information rather than a vague "charger isn't working" report.
Installation Considerations for Hill Station Properties
Installing chargers at hill station hotels comes with a few practical differences compared to city installations. The Echor properties are not large commercial buildings with dedicated electrical rooms and surplus power capacity. They're boutique properties — 12 to 33 rooms — with electrical infrastructure sized for hospitality loads: lighting, HVAC, kitchen equipment, hot water systems.
Adding a 22kW charger to the electrical load required assessing each property's available capacity individually. In some cases, the existing electrical supply could accommodate the charger without modification. In others, minor upgrades to the distribution board and protective devices were needed. Each property got an individual site assessment and a load plan specific to its electrical setup.
Weather exposure is another factor. Hill stations see heavy rain, snow at higher altitudes, and temperature swings from below freezing in winter to warm summers. Charger hardware needs to be rated for these conditions — IP65 protection at minimum, with connectors and cables that remain functional across the temperature range. Cable routing needs to account for water runoff and snow accumulation. These aren't show-stopping challenges, but they need to be planned for rather than discovered after installation.
Parking layouts at boutique hill properties are also different from urban buildings. Spaces are smaller, often on slopes, and guest parking may not be in a single neat bay. Charger placement needs to account for cable reach, vehicle positioning, and ensuring the charger doesn't obstruct pedestrian access or other parking.
What Has the Impact Been?
For Echor Hotels, the EV chargers serve two purposes. First, they remove a booking barrier. Guests who own EVs can now book Echor properties without worrying about charging logistics — the hotel handles it. On a route like Chandigarh to Manali where public charging is still limited, this is a genuine differentiator for a boutique property.
Second, it's a revenue-generating amenity. Unlike free WiFi or complimentary breakfast, EV charging brings in measurable per-kWh revenue. The CMS tracks every rupee, and as EV adoption continues to grow, the number of guests using the chargers will grow with it. The infrastructure is in place and the operational cost is minimal — electricity delivered at a margin.
The properties at Kasol and Manali were the starting point. As the chain expands — they now have over 15 properties across Himachal, with plans to enter Uttarakhand — the EV charging playbook established with ZEVpoint can be replicated at new locations with the same CMS, same pricing model, and same operational workflow.
What Other Hotels Can Learn from This
The Echor case study is particularly relevant for hotels and resorts on popular driving routes — hill stations, highway corridor properties, weekend getaway destinations. A few takeaways:
Start with guest demand. If your reservation team is hearing "do you have a charger?" from guests, the demand is already there. Every EV owner who doesn't book because you can't charge their car is revenue walking out the door.
22kW AC is the right fit for hotels. Your guests are parked for hours. They don't need DC fast charging speed — they need reliable overnight charging. AC chargers are cheaper to buy, cheaper to install, and perfectly suited to the hotel use case. If you're exploring this for your property, our hotel EV charging guide covers the full setup process.
Make it a revenue stream, not just a cost. Paid charging through a CMS means the charger pays for itself over time. You control the pricing, you keep the revenue, and the CMS handles the billing. There's no reason to offer it free unless it's a deliberate marketing decision.
Plan for connectivity. If your property is in an area with unreliable internet, make sure the charger can operate offline. OCPP fallback isn't a nice-to-have in the hills — it's essential. A charger that stops working when the internet drops is worse than no charger at all, because it creates a guest service failure.
Get full CMS control. You need to see what's happening with your chargers without calling the charger provider every time. Real-time status, session data, revenue reports, and the ability to adjust pricing — these should be accessible to your operations team, not locked behind a vendor's support desk.
