Guides
Charging an EV through load-shedding in Pakistan
How to keep an electric car charged when the power goes: overnight scheduling, what a UPS can and cannot do, solar, and checking a public charger first.
Load-shedding is the first objection anyone raises to an electric car in Pakistan, and it is a fair one. It is also less of a problem than it sounds, because an EV does not need power all the time. It needs enough hours of power at some point between one drive and the next. This guide is about finding those hours, at home and on the road.
How much charging a day actually needs
Most cars in Pakistani cities cover 30 to 60 km a day. An efficient EV uses about 17 kWh per 100 km here, so a 50 km day needs roughly 8.5 kWh back.
| Charger at home | Power | Hours to put back 50 km |
|---|---|---|
| Portable cable on a wall socket | about 2.3 kW | about 4 hours |
| 7 kW wallbox, single phase | about 7 kW | about 1.3 hours |
Those figures include the tenth or so lost between the wall and the battery. Unless a feeder is off for most of the night, the question is not whether there is enough power in a day; it is whether the car is plugged in when the power is on.
Plug in every night, not when the battery is low
The habit that beats load-shedding is boring: plug in every evening whatever the battery says, and let the car take what it can overnight. A car that is plugged in for ten hours will find the hours the feeder is live. A car that is only plugged in when it reaches 20 percent depends on the next two hours being the right two hours.
Two settings make this work:
- A charging schedule. Most EVs sold here let you set a start time in the car or its app. Set it to the start of the off-peak window, which is when the subsidised EV rate of Rs 23.57 per kWh applies on a time-of-use meter. The cost guide explains the rates.
- A charge limit. Set the car to stop at 80 percent for daily use. It is kinder to the battery, and it leaves headroom so a short session after an outage still finishes the job.
After the first outage, check the session in the car's app. Most wallboxes and cars resume on their own when the power returns, but some end the session and wait for you. You only need to find out once which kind you have.
Know your feeder's schedule
Scheduled load-shedding in Pakistan is set feeder by feeder, and feeders with higher losses get longer hours. Two houses a kilometre apart can have very different nights. Your distribution company publishes the schedule, and most bills print the feeder name, which is what you look it up by. The city pages name the company that supplies each city.
If your feeder is off for long stretches overnight, move the schedule rather than fight it: start charging the moment the evening peak ends, so the car is already full before a late-night outage.
What a UPS or inverter can and cannot do
A home UPS is built to keep fans, lights and a router going, not to fill a car. A typical tubular 200 Ah battery at 12 V holds about 2.4 kWh. A 50 kWh car battery holds as much as about twenty of them. Charging an EV from a UPS bank would empty it in minutes, and most home inverters cannot supply the current a wallbox draws anyway: a 7 kW wallbox pulls about 32 A.
So when you wire in a charger, put it on the grid side, not on the UPS circuit. If your electrician has to choose, the car can wait for the grid. The fridge cannot.
Solar changes the picture
Rooftop solar with a hybrid inverter is different, because it makes power during the day whatever the grid is doing. A car parked at home in daylight can take a few kilowatts straight off the panels. A portable cable at about 2.3 kW is a good match for a modest system; a 7 kW wallbox needs a larger array or the grid to make up the rest.
The catch is that most cars are at work during the day. Solar charging suits a second car, a weekend car, or anyone who works from home. Check what your inverter's backup output is rated for before you plug a car into it.
Voltage, earthing and the wallbox
Low or swinging voltage is common on long feeders, especially in summer. A wallbox protects itself: below a set voltage it pauses or refuses to start. That is the charger working correctly, not a fault. If it happens every evening, the problem is the supply, and your distribution company is who to report it to.
The other thing an installer should check is the earth. A charger needs a proper earth to detect faults safely, and older houses do not always have one that tests well. The home charging guide goes through the installation.
On the road: check before you drive
A public charger is only as reliable as its supply, and a motorway charger with a dead feeder is a long walk. Two habits help:
- Check the charger's status before you leave, and again an hour out. The Sarai app shows live availability on Sarai chargers and community reports on the rest, and the route planner drops a charger that has been reported down.
- Leave with a margin. Plan to arrive at each stop with 20 percent, not 5, so a charger that is down means driving on to the next one, not waiting by the road. Every route page lists the DC chargers in order along the road, so you know where the next one is.
If a charger is down when you arrive, report it in the app. The next driver sees it before they set off.